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IS©IBIEI^T IWIEWS. 



A/.-M^Fork I'lih-^ by li-"'PMrso/i i\'"(W C/i/f Sc. 



THE 

A¥ORKS 

OF 

ROBERT BURNS; 

CONTAINING HIS LIFE; 

BY 

JOHN LOCKHART, ESQ. 



THE POETRY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF DR. CURRIE'S EDITION 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE POET BY HIMSELF, GILBERT BURNS, 
PROFESSOR STEWART, AND OTHERS ; 



ESSAY OX SCOTTISH POETRY, 

INCLUDING 

THE POETRY OF BURNS, BY DR. CURRIE ; 

2Jurns's Songs, 

FROM JOHNSON'S ** MUSICAL MUSEUM," AND " THOMPSON'S SELECT MELODIES ;" 

SELECT SCOTTISH SO^GS OF THE OTHER POETS, 

FROM THE BEST COLLECTIONS, 

WITH BURNS'S REMARKS. 

FORMING, IN ONE WORK, THE TRUEST EXHIBITION OF THE MAN AND THE POET 
AND THE FULLEST EDITION OF HIS 
POETRY AND PROSE WRITINGS HITHERTO PUBLISHED. 



NEW-YORK: 



PRINTED BY WILLIAM PEARSON, 60, CLIFF-STREET 

AND SOLD BY ALL THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS IN 
THE UNITED STATES. 



1832. 



c?v^. a' 



Gtft 
i. HUTCHESOM. 



r--"^ - -^^ 



NOTICE 



TO 



THE PRESENT EDITION. 



In the Dedication of the Life of Burns by Dr. Currie to his friend Cap- 
tain Graham Moore, the learned Doctor thus expresses himself as to his 
Editorial office : — " The task was beset with considerable difficulties, and 
" men of established reputation naturally declined an undertaking, to the 
" performance of which it was scarcely to be hoped that general approba- 
" tion could be obtained by any exertion of judgment or temper. To such 
" an office my place of residence, my accustomed studies, and my occu- 
*< pations, were certainly little suited. But the partiality of Mr. Syme 
" thought me, in other respects, not unqualified ; and his solicitations, 
" joined to those of our excellent friend and relation, Mrs. Dunlop, and of 
" other friends of the family of the poet, I have not been able to resist." 

These sentences contain singular avowals. They are somehow apt to 
suggest, what we have all heard before, that some are born to honour, 
while others have honours thrust upon them. The Doctor's squeamishness 
in favour of persons of established reputation^ who might be chary of a tick- 
lish and impracticable, if not an odious task, is in ludicrous contrast with the 
facts as they have since fallen out. Have we not seen the master-spirits 
of the age, Scott, Byron, Campbell, honouring in Burns a kindred, if not a 
superior genius, and, like passionate devotees, doing him homage ? They 
have all voluntarily written of him ; and their recorded opinions evince no 
feelings of shyness, but the reverse : they not only honour, but write as if 
honoured by their theme. But let us leave the subject, by merely pointing 
attention to the Doctor's mode of treating it, as a decisive test of the evil 
days and evil tongues amidst which the poet had fallen, and of the exis- 
tence of that deplorable party-spirit, during which the facts involving his 
character as a man, and his reputation as a poet, could neither be cor- 
rectly stated, nor fairly estimated. 

It is true. Dr. Currie's Life contained invaluable materials. The poet's 
auto-biographical letter to Dr. Moore, — indeed the whole of his letters, — 
the letters of his brother Gilbert, — of Professor Dugald Stewart, — of Mr. 
Murdoch and of Mr. Syme, and the other contributors, are invaluable ma- 
terials. They form truly the very backbone of the poet's life, as edited by 



( ii ) 

Dr. Currie. They must ever be regarded a? precious relics ; and however 
largely they may be used as a part of a biographical work, they ought also 
to be presented in the separate form, entire ; for, taken in connection with 
the general correspondence, they will be found to be curiously illustrative 
of the then state of society in Scotland, and moreover to contain manifold 
and undoubted proofs of the diffusion and actual existence, amongst Scots- 
men of all degrees, of that literary talent, which had only been inferred, 
hypothetically, from the nature of her elementary Institutions. 

We have no wish to detract from the high reputation of Dr. Currie. 
It will however be remarked, that the biographical part of his labours, 
as stated by himself, involve little beyond the office of redacteur, — He 
was not upon the spot, but living in England, and he was engaged with 
professional avocations. If truth lies at the bottom of the well, he had nei- 
ther the time nor the means to fish it up. Accordingly, it is not pretended 
that he proceeded upon his own views, formed, on any single occasion, after 
a painful or pains-taking scrutiny ; or that, in giving a picture of the man 
and the poet, he did more than present to the public what had come to 
him entirely at second-hand, and upon the authority of others ; however 
tainted or perverted the matter might have been, from the then general- 
ly diseased state of the public mind. The Life of the poet, compiled under 
such circumstances, was necessarily defective, — nay it did him positive in- 
justice in various respects, particularly as to his personal habits and moral 
character. These were represented with exaggerated and hideous features, 
unwarranted by truth, and having their chief origin in the malignant viru- 
lence of party strife. 

The want of a Life of Burns, more correctly drawn, was long felt. This 
is evident from the nature of the notices bestowed, in the periodicals of 
the time, upon the successive works of Walker and Irving, who each of 
them attempted the task of his biographer ; and upon the publications of 
Cromek, who in his " Reliques," and " Select Scottish Songs," brought to 
light much interesting and original matter. But these attempts only whet- 
ted and kept alive the general feeling, which was not gratified in its full 
extent until nearly thirty years after the publication of Dr. Currie' s work. 
It was not until 1827 that a historian, worthy of the poet, appeared in the 
person of Mr. John Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott, and (ra- 
ther a discordant title), Editor of the London Quarterly Review. He in 
that year published a Life of Burns, both in the separate form, and as a part 
of that excellent repertory known by the title of Constables Miscellany. 

It is only necessary to read Mr. Lockhart's Life of Burns, to be satisfied 
of his qualifications for the task, and that he has succeeded in putting 
them, after an upright and conscientious manner, to the proper use. It 
certainly appears odd, that a high Tory functionary should stand out the 
champion of the Bard who sung, 

" A man's a man for a' that ;" 

and who, because of his democratic tendencies, not only missed of public 
patronage, but moreover had long to sustain every humiliation and indirect 
persecution the local satellites of intolerance could fling upon him. But the 
lapse of time, and the spread of intelligence, have done much to remove 
prejudices and soften asperities ; to say nothing of that Independence of 
mind which always adheres to true genius, and which the circumstances 
in the poet's history naturally roused and excited in a kindred spirit. Mr. 



( iii ) 

Lockhart, It will farther be observed, besides having compiled his work un- 
der circumstances of a general nature much more favourable to accurate 
delineation, likewise set about the task in a more philosophical manner 
than the preceding biographers. He judged for himself; he took neither 
facts nor opinions at second-hand ; but inquired, studied, compared, and 
where doubtful, extricated the facts in the most judicious and careful man 
ner. It may be said, that that portion of the poet's mantle which invested 
his sturdiness of temper, has fallen upon the biographer, who, as the poet 
did, always thinks and speaks for himself. 

These being our sentiments of Mr. Lockhart's Life of Burns, we have 
preferred it, as by far the most suitable biographical accompaniment of the 
present edition of his works. It has been our study to insert, in this edi- 
tion, every thing hitherto published, and fit to be published, of which 
Burns was the author. The reader will find here all that is contained 
in Dr. Currie's edition of 1800, with the pieces brought to light by all the 
respectable authors who have since written or published of Burns. — The 
following general heads will show the nature and extent of the present 
work. 

1. The Life by Lockhart. 

2. The Poems, as published in the Kilmarnock and first Edinburgh edition, 

with the poet's own prefaces to these editions, and also as published 
in Dr. Currie's edition of 1800 ; having superadded the pieces since 
brought forward by Walker, Irving, Morison, Paul, and Cromek. 

3. Essay (by Dr. Currie), on Scottish Poetry, including the Poetry of 

Burns. 

4. Select Scottish Songs not Burns's, upwards of 200 in number, and many 

of them having his Annotations, Historical and Critical, prefixed. 

5. Burns's Songs, collected from Johnson's Musical Museum, the larger 

work of Thomson, and from the publications of Cromek, Cunningham, 
and Chalmers, nearly 200 in number. 

6. The Correspondence, including all the Letters published by Dr. Currie, 

besides a number subsequently recovered, published by Cromek and 
others. 

The whole forming the best picture of the man and the poet, and the only 
complete edition of his writings, In one work, hitherto offered to the public. 
Besides a portrait of the poet, executed by an able artist, long familiar witli 
the original picture by Nasmyth, there Is also here presented, (an entire 
novelty), a fac-slmlle of the poet's handwriting. It was at one time mat- 
ter of surprise that the Ploughman should have been a man of genius and 
a poet. If any such curious persons still exist, they will of course be like- 
wise surprised to find that he was so good a penman. 



New York, Sept. 11, 1832. 



CONTENTS OF BURNS'S WORKS. 



OF THE LIFE. 



Page 

Chap. I The Poet's Birth, 1759— Circumstances and peculiar Character of hks 

Father and ]\lother — Hardships of his early years — Sources, such as they were, of 

his Mental Improvement — Commenceth Love and Poetry at 16, .^« , i — viii 

Chap. II From 17 to 24 — Robert and Gilbert Burns work to their Father, as 

Labourers, at stated Wages — At rural work the Poet feared no competitor — This 
period not marked by much IMental Improvement — At Dancing-School — Pro- 
gress in Love and Poetry — At School at Kirkoswald's — Bad Company — At Ir- 
vine Flaxdressing — Becomes there Member of a Batchelor's Club, ^.»-^^^^^,~w ix — xix 

Chap. Ill The Brothers, Robert and Gilbert, become tenants of Mossgiel— 

Their incessant labour and mioderate habits — The farm cold and unfertile — Not 
Prosperous — The Muse anti-calvinistical — The Poet thence involved deeply in 
local polemics, and charged with heresy — Curious account of these disputes — 
Early poems prompted by them — Origin of, and remarks upon the Poet's prin- 
cipal pieces — Love leads him far astray — A crisis — The Jail or the W'est Indies 

Chap. IV — The Poet gives up IMossgiel to his Brother Gilbert— Intends for Ja- 
maica — Subscription Edition of his Poems suggested to supply means of outfit — 
One of 600 copies printed at Kilmarnock, 1786 — It brings him extended repu- 
tation, and £20 — Also many very kind friends, but no patron — In these circum- 
stances, Guaging first hinted to him by his early friends, Hamilton and Aiken — 
Sayings and doings in the first year of his fame — Jamaica again in view — Plan 
desisted from because of encouragement by Dr. Blacklock to publish at Edin- 
burgh, wherein the Poet sojourns, — .. ^ — ^ .^ — , — xxxv — Ixiii 

Chap. V. — The Poet winters iii Edinburgh, 1786-7 — By his advent, the condition 
of that city — Literary, Legal, Philosophical, Patrician, and Pedantic — is lighted 
up, as by a meteor — He is in the full tide of his fame there, and for a while ca- 
ressed by the fashionable — What happens to him generally in that new world, 
and his behaviour under the varying and very trying circumstances — The tavern 
life then greatly followed — The Poet tempted beyond all former experience by 
bacchanals of every degree — His conversational talent universally admitted, as 
not the least of his talents— The Ladies like to be carried off their feet by it, 
while the philosophers hardly keep theirs — Edition of 1500 copies by Creech, 
which yields much money to the Poet — Resolves to visit the classic scenes of his 
own country — Assailed with thick-coming visions of a reflux to bear him back 
to the region of poverty and seclusion, ^.^^..-v.,^^,.,.^-^^^ ^ ^..^^^ Ixiv — Ixxi 

Chap. VI — Makes tliree several pilgrimages in Caledonia — I>ands from the first 
of these, after an absence of six months, amongst his friends in die '' Auld Clay 
Big:gin" — Finds honour in his own country — Falls in with many kind friends 
during those pilgrimages, and is familiar with the great, but never secures one 
effective patron — Anecdotes and Sketches — liingcrs in Edinburgh amidst the 
fleshpots, winter 1787-8 — Upset in a hackney coach, which produces a bruised 
limb, and niournful musings for six weeks — Is enrolled in the Excise — Another 
crisis, in which the Poet finds it necessary to implore even his friend Mrs. Dunlop 
not to desert him — Growls over his publisher, but after settling with him leaves 
Edinburgh with £500 — Steps towards a more regular life, ^^ Ixii Ixxvi 

Chap. VII — Marries — Announcements, (apologetical,) of the event — Remarks — 
Becomes (1788) Farmer at EUiesland, on the Nith, in a romantic vicinity, six 



VI CONTENTS. 



Page 



mUes from Dumfries— The IMuse wakeful as ever, while the Poet maintains a 
varied and extensive literary correspondence with all and sundry — Remarks upon 
the correspondence— Sketch of his person and habits at this period by a brother 
poet, who shews cause against success in farming — The untoward conjunction of 
Gauger to Farmer— The notice of the squirearchy, and the calls of admiring 
visitors, lead too uniformly to the ultra convivial life— Leaves Elliesland (1791) 
to be exciseman in the town of Dumfries, ^^.^-^^ , ^..^^^ ^,^^. Ixxxii-^-xc 

Chap, yni — Is more beset in town than country— His early biographers, (Dr. 
Carrie not excepted), have coloured too darkly under that head— It is not correct 
to speak of the Poet as having sunk into a toper, or a solitary drinker, or of his 
revels as other than occasional, or of their having interfered with the punctual 
discharge of his official duties — He is shown to have been the affectionate and be- 
loved husband, although passing follies imputed ; and the constant and most as- 
siduous instructor of his children— Impulses of the French Revolution — Symp- 
toms of fraternizing — The attention of his official superiors is called to tliem— 
Practically no blow is inflicted, only the bad name — Interesting details of this pe- 
riod— Gives his whole soul to song making— Preference in that for his native 
dialect, with the other attendant facts, as to that portion of liis immortal lays, ^^.^^ xci— cix 

Chap. IX The Poet's mortal period approaches— His peculiar temperament- 
Symptoms of premature old age — These not diminished by narrow circumstances 
Chagrin from neglect, and death of a Daughter — The Poet misses public pa- 
tronage : and even tlie fair fruits of his own genius— the appropriation of which 
is debated for the casuists who yielded to him merely the shell— His magnani- 
mity when death is at hand ; his interviews, conversations, and addresses as a 
dying man— -Dies, 21st July 179t)— Public funeral, at which inany attend, and 
amongst the rest the future Premier of England, who had steadOy refused to ac- 
knowledge the Poet, living — His family munificently provided for by the public 
—Analysis of character — His integrity, religious state, and genius — Strictures 
upon him and his writings by Scott, Campbell, Byron, and others, ,,-^« ex — cxxxiv 

Verses on the death of Burns, by Mr. Roscoe of Liverpool, ^^ ^.,.^.^, ^^ — cxxxv 

Character of Burns and his Writings, by INIrs. Riddell of Glenriddell, ,-..,^,,,.v^ cxxxvii 

Preface to the First Edition of Burns's Poems, printed in Kilmarnock, „ ♦,,^ clxiii 

Dedication to the Caledonian Hunt, prefixed to the Edinburgh Edition, ^,^„ — ^^ tlxv 



CONTENTS OF THE POEMS. 



A Bard's Epitaph, 
Address to a Haggis, 

to a Lady, 

to a Louse, . 

to a Mouse,^-~ 

to Colonel de Peyster, ^.^ 

to Edinburgh, 

to General Demourier, 

to J. Syme, 

to Mr. Mitchell,. 

to Mr. William Tytler, ^ 

to Robert Graham, Esq.. 

to the Deil, 

to the Owl, 

to the Shade of Thomson, 

to the Scotch Representatives,— 

to the Toothache,. 

to the Unco Guid, 
A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, 
A Dream (a Birth-day Ode to the King), 
A Grace before Dinner,,, 
Answer to a Tax Surveyor, . 
A Prayer in Prospect of Death, 

in Anguish, 
A Sketch, 
A Winter Night,„, 
A Vision,, 

Death and Dr. Honibook,, 
Despondency, an Ode, 
a Hymn, 



Page. 



„ 72 

.•56, 78 

" 78 

82 

29 

69 



78 



Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson, 
William Creech, „ 



on Peg Nicolson,,,,,.,,,,^.,., 

Tam Samson, — — 

on the Year 1788, 



Epistle to a V'oung Friend, 

to Captain Riddel, 

to Davie, a Brother Poet (1), „. 

to Davie, a Brother Poet (2), ^ 

to Gavin Hamilton, 

to J. Lapraik, a Scots Poet, 

to J. Rankin with Poems, ~ 

to Mr. Macadam, 

to Terraughty, „. 

to the Reverend Mr. M'Math, 

to W. S. Ochiltree, 
Epitaph on a Friend, 

on a Noisy Polemic,,-.,^^.,.,..*,,^ 



on a Ruling Elder, 

on Gavin Hamilton, ,..~.^ 

on R. Aitken, ,,^ „ ..„„,„ „ 

on the Poet's Father, 
on VVee Johnny, 



Extempore Effusions in the Court of Session 
on Falsehood,,,.^.,,,,,,^ 
to a Friend, 
to Mr. Syme, 



Refusal to Dine,, 
when at Carlisle, . 



59 
81 
30 
59 
79 

43, 45, 79 
47 
81 
81 
79 
46 
75 
55 
55 
55 
55 
55 
55 
82 
83 
83 
74 
74 
83 



Halloween, 
Holy Fair, . 



Impromptu, a Lady's Birth-dav,„, 
Inscription, Altar o'f Independence,, 

Lament of Queen Mary, 



73 

.^ 72 



50 



Lament for James Earl of Glencaim, 

for a Scotch Bard gone to the West Indies, 
Lines left at a Friend's House, „„„, „ 

left at Carron, 

left at Friar's Carse Hermitage, ,„.~v — ..„,-. 

left at Taymouth Inn, 

on a Postluimous Child, „ 

on a AV'ounded Hare, 

on Bruar Water, 

on Captiin Grose, — „ 

on Miss Cruikshanks,- 

on Religion, 

on Sensibility, to Mrs. Dunlop, „„„,„, — , 

on Scaling some Water-fowl in Loch Turit, 

on the Death of J. Macleod, . — > — , — , 

on the Fall of Fyers, 

on the Highlands, — 

on William Smellie,,. 

to a Mountain Daisy, 

to an Offended Friend, — 

to an Old Sweetheart with his Poems, 

to a Young Lady with Books, ,„„,.,„. 

to Mi-s L. with Beattie's Puems,~„,„; 

to Robert Graham, Esq. 

to Ruin, 

to Sir John Whitefoord, „„,.,, 



Page 
32 
40 

37 



Man was Made to Mourn, a Dirge, 

Monody on a Capricious Female and Epitaph, 

New- Year's Day, a Sketch, „.,, „„,,,.,w^ 



Ode on a Miserly Character, 
on my Early Days 
on Pastoral Poetry 



Poor Maillie's Elegy, 
Scotch Drink,,,,,,,,,, 



Sonnet on the Death of Mr. Riddel, 
Stanzas on Death, 
Strathallan's Lament, 

Tam o' Sh;mter, 

Tam Samson's Elegy and Epitaph, — - 

The Auld Farmer's New-Year's Salutation to his 
Mare Miiggie, 
Brigs o' Ayr, ^ 
Calf, 

Cotter's Saturday Night, 

Death and Dying Words of Poor Maillie, 
First Psalm, — „„.,„.„„ 



First Six Verses of 90th Psalm, 

Henpecked Husband,, 

Jolly Beggars, 

Kirk's Alarm, 

Lament on a Friend's Love Disappointment, 

Newspaper, — , „„,„,.,„, „. 

Ordination, . 
Twa Dogs, 
Twa Herds,.. 

Whistle, 

Vision, ~ 



Vowels, a Tale, 



Winter, a Dirge,,.^,^,,-.,, ,,,,,, ,,„ 

Essay on Scotlibh Poetry (Dr. Currie), 



„ 61 

on the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair, „„ 61 
to Liberty, 77 

16 



52 
23 

28 
10 
14 
55 
16 
37 
38 
68 
62 
6"? 
51 
70 

^5 

1 

67 
59 

20 
81 



81-97 



CONTENTS OF THE SELECT SCOTTISH SONGS. 



Andrew and his Cutty Gun, — 
Annie Lawrie, ^ 
As I went out in a May Morning, 
Auld Rob Morris, 
Robin Gray, 
Aye waukin' O,^ 
A waukrife Minny, ^^ 
Awa Whigs Awa, -v^^- 

Beds of Sweet Roses, 

Bess the Gaukic 

Bessy Bell and Mary Gray, 

Bide ye Vet (2 sets), ^,^-,. 

Blink o'er the Burn Sweet Betty, 

Blue Bonnets over the Border,^^ 

Bonnie Barbara Allan, 

Dundee, 

Mary Hay, ^^ 

Came ye o'er frae France, ^^,. 
Carle an' the King come,^ — ^, 
Cauld Kail in Aberdeen,- 
Ca' the Ewes to the Knowes 
Charlie is my Darling, 
Clout the Cau'dron,^-, 
Cock pen, -v^—^~,~^ — ~- 
Come under my Plaidie,^^^,^.-^ 

Comin' thro' the Rye, -,-^, 

Corn Rigs are Bonnie, ^. 

Crail Town (Iram Coram Dago), 
Cromlei's Lilt, — -^-,, .w^,,, 

Dinna think Bonnie Lassie,,,,,,.. 

Donald Coupar, ^ „„.,^,^ 

Down the Burn Davie,,- 
Dumbarton's Drums, 
Dusty Miller,,,,,, 

Ettrick Banks, 



Fair Annie of Lochroyan, . 

Fairly Shot of Her, ,.^..^^ 

False Love and hae ye Played Me This, 
Farewell to Ayrshire,™,,, 
Fare ye weel my Auld Wife, ,,. 

For Lack o' Gold She's left me, , — 

For the Sake o' Somebody, ,,^ ,-„. 

Fye gar rub her o'er wi' Straw, „„„„«, 

Gala Water,,,,-, „,„,,^ . — 

(let up and Bar the Door O, — ^ 

Go to Berwick Joluiie, . — ,w-,,,~, 

Gudc Vill Comes and Gade Yill Goes,, 

Hame never cam' He, — . ^,„,^,. — r 

Haud awa frae rne Donald, 

Hap and row the Feetie o't,. 

Here's a Health to them that's awa,. 

Hey ca' through,,,. 

Highland T,ad(iie, 

Hooly and Fairlie,,, 

Hughie Graham, 



I had a Horse and I had nac mair, 

I'm o'er Young to Marry Yet, ^ 

I'll never leave Ye, „ — ,,^^ 
I loo'd nae a Laddie but ane, 

Jenny Dang the Weaver, , — ,-„^ „^ 

If ve'U be my Dawtie and sit on my Flaitl, 
In 'the Garb of Old Gaul,,„ 



Page. 
^ 148 
,^ 173 

187 
^ 176 

137 
,„. 156 

145 

184 

120 
101 
178 
132 
114 
136 
178 
151 
157 

182 
157 
129 
146 
152 
103 
145 
158 
156 
120 
153 
117 

157 
160 
114 
127 
158 

178 

102 
153 
154 

172 
154 
127 
165 
105 

127 
154 
162 
123 

185 
17b 
15!) 
155 
155. 
108 
134 
119 

137 

123 
162 
155 
186 
162 
140 



Jockey said to Jenny,^.^v.~^ 
John Hay's Bonnie Lassie, 
John o' Badenyon, ^,-,wv-„- 

Johnny Cope,,, ,>,-„> >,,,v^ 

Johnny Faa, 



Johnny's Gray Breeks, . 
Jumpin John, 



Kate of Aberdeen, 
Kathrine Ogie, , 



Page. 
^ 186 
^ 115 
^ 144 
^ 143 
^ 136 
^ 106 
^ 159 



Keep the Country Bonnie Lassie, ^ 
Kelvin Grove, 



Kenmure's on and av/a Willie, ,w-^~w, 

Killycrankie (the Battle), ^^^^^^^ 

Killycrankie O (the Braes), . 
Kind Robin Iocs me. 

Lady Mary Ann,,. 



Lass gin ye Loe me teH me now. 

Lassie lie near me,, 

Lewis Gordon, 

Little wat ye wha's comin', — ,^„,„„„,,w„ ,.„-,>„,. 

Lochaber no more, 

Lochnagar, ,-,^ 

Logan Braes, (double set),. 
Logic o' Buchan, 



Lord Ronald, my Son, 

Low down in the Broom, 

Macpherson's Rant, 

Maggie Lauder, ^-^^^^..^^ 
Mary's Dream 



Mary Scot, the Flower o' Yarrow, 
Merry hae I been Teething a Heckle, 
Mill, Mill, O, 
My Auld Man, 



My Dearie, if thou Die, , 

My Jo Janet, 

My Love she's but a Lassie yet. 

My Love's in Germanie, . .^ 

My Mither's aye Glowrin o'er me,. 
My Native Caledonia, ~, 
My only Joe and Dearie O, ,-,-,,-v.„.,ww^ 
My Wife's a Wanion Wee Thing, 



107 
163 
159 
156 
185 
147 
160 
173 

146 
163 
164 
119 
160 
186 
184 
150 
155 
149 
164 

125 
121 
112 
124 
164 
128 
165 
118 
123 
165 



My Wife has taen the Gee, 

Neil Gow's Farewell to Whisky O, 

O an' ye were Dead Gudeman, 
O can ye labour Lea Young Man,, 

Och hey Johnny Lad, 

O dear Minny what shall 1 do, . 

O merry may the Maid be, 

O on ochrio (the Widow of Glenco), 

Old King Coul,,. 

Our Guidman cam' Hame at E'en, 

O'er the Muir amang the Heather, 

O'er Bogie wi' my Love,,w,„-^~-~~, 

O Waly, Waly up yon Bank,^,. 

Polwarth on the Green,, 
Poverty parts Gude Company,, 



„.„,.,„„ 174 

182 
167 
153 
166 
166 



Sae Merry as We hae been, 

Sandy o'er the Lea, „ 

Saw ye Johnny Comin', „, 
Saw ye my Father, 



170 

167 
139 
161 
160 
183 
119 
168 
161 
150 
163 
128 

185 
168 



116 
165 



„, 103 
^ 175 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



Sav/ ye nae my Peggy, . 

{^he rose and let me in, — , 

?teer her up and hand her gaun, 
Strephon and Lydia, 
Symou Brodie, . 

Tak' your Auld Cloak about you,- 

Tarn o' the Balloch, 

Tarry VVoo,'^ 

The Auld Man's Mare's dead. 



The Auld Wife ayoiit the Fire, 
The Battle o' Sherra-muir, 
The Banks o' the Tweed, -. 
The Beds o' Sweet Roses, - 
The Birks of Invermay, 
The Blythesome Bridal,. 
The Blathrie o't,-. 
The Boatie rows. 

The Bob of Dumblane, 

The bonnie brucket Lassie, 

The bonnie Lass o' Branksome, 

The bonnie Lass that made the Bed to me,. 

The Braes o' Ballendean, 

The brisk younfT Lad, 

The Brume o* the Cowdenknowes, . 

The Bush aboon Traquair 

The Campbells are comin'. 

The Carle he cam' o'er the Craft, 

The Coallier's bonnie Lassie, ---^ 

The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn,v^ 

The Flowers of the Forest, 

The Flowers of Edinburgh, 

The Foray, ^ 



*rhe Gaberlunzie Man, 

The happy Marriage, 

The Highland Queen, 

The Jolly Beggar, 

The Lammie, -^ 

The Landart Laird, ^ 

The Lass of Peatie's Mill, 

The Lass o' Liviston, 

The Last Time I cam' o'er the Muir,, 



Page. 
104 
115 
170 

170 

155 
176 
113 
169 
177 
129 
151 
120 
179 
139 
109 
110 
1 85 
116 
166 
137 
179 
173 
179 
116 
164 
180 
113 
147 
141 
151 
187 
142 
110 
125 
112 
171 
159 
107 
105 
106 
114 



The Life and Age o' Man.^-^A,^-^^.,,-^-,-*,, 

The Maid that tends the Goats, ^^., 

The Maltm;ui, 

The merry Men O, 

The Miller o' Dee, 

The Minstrel (Douochthead), ^ 

The muckin' o' Geordie's Byre, 

The Old Man's Song,. — ^. 

The Poets, what Fools the're to Deave us. 

The Poesie, 

The Rofk and the wee pickle Tow, 

The Soutois o' Selkirk, ^ 

The Tailor fell thro' the Bed, 
The Tiirnimspike.^- 



The weary Pmid o' Tow, 
The wee, wee German Lairdie, 

The Wee Thing, ,-. 

The Wee Wifikic, ,™™ 



I he White Cockade, — ,- — 
The Widow, 
The Vellow-hair'd Laddie, 

I he Young Laird and Edinburgh Katie, 

There's nae Luck about the House, 

This is no Mine Ain House, -, 

Tibbie Fowler, 

Tibbie Dunbar, ~ 
To Daunton Me, 
To the Kye wi' Me, (2 sets), 

Todliu Hame, 

Tranent-Muir, 

TuUochgorum, 

'Twas within a Mile o' Edinburgh Town, . 

Tweedside (2 sets),..v.,-^ 



Up and Warn a' Willie, 
Up in the Mornin' early,. 

Wandering Willie, ^^* 

Waukin' o' the Fauld, *^ 

We're a' Nid Noddin,. 

Were nae my Heart Light I wad Die, 

Willie was a Wanton Wag, 

Woo'd and Mairied and a', 



Page. 
100 
115 
177 
184 
175 
151 
125 
135 
174 
111 
13.2 
152 
184 
107 
159 
187 
180 
171 
181 
181 
181 
182 
115 
142 
172 
142 
136 
175 
129 
121 
144 
174 
109 

138 



182 
120 
167 

. 124 
169 

140 



CONTENTS OF BURNS'S SONGS. 



Adieu, a Heart-warm fond Adieu, 

Ae fond Kiss and then we Sever, — 

Afton Water, 

Again rejoicing Nature sees, 

A Highland Lad my Love was bom, 

Amang the Trees where humming Bees, 

A Man's a Man for a' that,- 

Anna,— 

Annie, 

A red red Rose,. 

A Rose Bud by my early Walk, 

A Southland Jennie, ^^.j.^ 

Auld Lang S y ne,— ^-->— > -,— , 



Page. 
168 



Auld Rob Morris, 

Bessy and her Spinning- Wheel, 
Behold the hour the Boat arrives, . 
Beware of Bonnie Ann, — --.-..vv^ 
Beyond thee. Dearie, . 
Blythe hae I been on yon Hill, 
Blythe was She, 
Bonnie Bell,-—-. 



Jean, 

Lesley, 
Wee Thing 



Bruce at Bannockburn, 



Caledonia— (their Groves o' Sweet Myrtle), 
Can'st thou leave me thus, Katy, 



Ca' the Ewes,- 
Chloe, 



Reply, — 



188 
189 
189 
189 
190 
190 
190 
191 
191 
191 
191 
192 

192 
193 
192 
19." 
195 
193 
194 
194 
194 
194 
195 

195 
195 
196 
195 
196 



Come let me take Thee to my Breast, 
Contented wi' Little, 
Country Lassie, — 
Craigieburn-wood, 



Dainty Davie, 
Deluded Swain, 



Does haughty Gaul, 
Down the Bum Davie, 
Dmican Gray,- 

Evan Banks, 



Fair Eliza,-- ^ — j-— -— - 

Fairest Maid on Devon Banks,- 

Fate gave the Word, 

For tlie Sake o' Somebody, — > 

Forlorn my Love, 

From thee Eliza,—.— ——.,—— ^ 



Page. 
197 
197 
197 
197 
198 
195 



198 
198 
199 
199 
199 

. 199 

. 20O 

200 

200 

, 200 

, 201 

201 



Gala. Water,— —~ 

Gloomy December, 

Green grow the Rashes O,-,- 
Gudewife count the Lawin',. 

Had I a Cave on some Wild distant Shore, 
Handsome Nell, 



Her flowing Locks, 

Here's a, health to Ane I loe dear. 



201 

201 

. 202 



205 
202 
203 
204 



to Them that's awa, 



«^ 204 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 
Here's a Bottle and an Honest Friend, ...^.^^^^ 204 

Highland Harry, — 20.^ 

Highland Mary, ■ . 203 

How Cruel are the Parents, ,^.^^. 204 

How lang and dreary is the Night, ^.^^^^^ 204 

1 am a Son of Mars.^--— ~- 205 

Jamie come try m e, ^ — , — ^^,.,^,^,^,^>„ 206 

I dream'd I lay where Flowers were springing,-,^ 205 

I'll aye ca' in by yon Town, 2i'5 

I'm o'er Voung to Marry yet, 205 

It is nae Jean thy bonnie Faee,--.^,^,^,.^....-,-^-.^™-^ 206 
Jockey's ta'en the Parting Ki.,s, ..^^^^^^^^^^^^^^.^^^ 206 

John Anderson my jo, ,,<^ 2i)7 

John Barleycorn, ^ , , 206 



Last May a braw Wooer cam' down the Lang Glen, 208 

Lassie wi' the Lint-white Locks, . 208 

Lay thy Loof in mine Lass, 208 

Let not a Woman e'er complain, 
Logan Braes, 



Long, long the Night, 

Lord Gregory, 

Lord Daer,^,.-...,^.^-.^,^^.-^ 



2(19 
209 
209 
209 
210 



Macpherson's Farewell, ^^...w 
Maria's Dwelling, 

Mark yonder Pomp of costly Fashion, . 
Mary ^lorison, 



Meg o' the Mill, - 
My Bonnie Mary, 

My Heart's in the Highlands,-, 

My Lady's Gown there's Gairs upon't, . 
My Nannie's awa, -,--,<.——--.--.— —-^^ 
My Nannie O, — ^ 



My Peggy's Face my Peggy's Form, 
My Spouse Nancy, ~^^.,,,^ ,,.,^,^ 
My Wife's a winsome Wee Thing, 
Musing on the Roaring Ocean,- 



Naebody, 

Nancy, -„ 

Now Banks and Braes are clad in Green, — 

Now Spring has clad the Grove in Green,---- 

Now westlin Winds and slaughtering Guns, 

O' a' the airts the Wind can blaw,-— — — — . 
O ay my Wife she dang me, 

O bonnie is yon Rosy Brier, 

O for Ane and Twentie Tam, 

O gin my Love were von Red Rose, 



>-— — — 210 

210 

— 211 
~-. 211 

— 211 
212 
212 
212 
212 
213 
213 
213 
214 
211 



O leave Novelles ye INIauchlin Belles, 
O let me in this ae Night,—————. 
O Love will venture in, — — — , 

O May, thy Morn,— 

On a Bank of Flowers, . 
On Cessnock Bank, — , 



On the Seas and far away. 
Open the Door to me O,— . 
O Philly happy bt that day, 
O stay sweet warbln^ Woodlark. 
O wat ye Wha's in yoi Town, — 
O were I on Parnassus ifjjj ' 
O wert Thou in the Cauk Blast - 
O wha is She that Loes me,. ' 
Out over the Forth,, 



Peggy Alison.->-v— ——,>->.. ^..^.^ 

Phillis the Fair, w— ,, 

Powers Celestial whose protectb^j ^ 
Puirtith Cauid,. ' 

Rantin' Roarin' Willie,, 



214 
214 
215 
214 
215 

215 
216 
216 
216 
217 
217 
217 
218 
218 
219 
218 
219 
219 
220 
220 
220 
221 
216 
216 
216 



Raving Wind* around her blowing,- 



Saw ye ought o' Captain Grose, 

Scroggum,. 

She's Fair and She's Fause, . 

She says she Loes me best ol 

Sic a VVife as Willie had, 

Steer her up and hand her gaun, 

Sweet fa's the Eve on Craigieburn-wood, 

Tam Glen,—- , 

The Auld Man, 

The Banks o' Castle Gordon, 

o' Cree, 

o' Devon, - 

o' Doon, - 

o' Nith, — 
The Bard's Song, 



Page. 
225 

225 
223 
223 
223 
224 
224 
224 



— 225 
225 
226 



The Battle o' Sherra-Muir, 
The Big-bellied Bottle,—— 
The Birks o' Aberfeldie,, 
The Blue-eyed Lassie, 



The bonnie Wee Thing, 

The Braes o' Ballochmyle, — — 



The Carle o' Kellyburn-Braes, — 

The Chevalier's Lament, — — — , 

The Day Returns, 

The Death Song, 

The Deil's awa wi' the Exciseman, 

The Election,-. w- ^— 

The Gallant Weaver,, 
The Gardener, 



The Gloomy Night is gatherin' fast. 
The Heather was bloomin', — 

The Highland Lassie O, 

The Lad that's far awa, — 
The Lass o' Ballochmyle, 



The Lass that made the Bed to me, 

The Lazy Mist, 

The Lea-Rig, — 



The Lovely Lass o' Inverness, 

The Lover's Salutation, 

The Riggs o' Barley, . 

The Soldier's Return, 

The stown Glance o' Kindness,—. 

The Toast, 



The Tocher for Me, 
The Woodlark, 



225 
236 
226 
226 
227 
227 
228 
228 
228 
228 
229 
229 
230 
230 
230 
231 
231 
252 

232 

232 

233 

233 

233 

234 

234 

234 

235 
235 
235 
237 
236 
258 
237 

237 



The Young Highland Rover, — 

There'll never be Peace till Jamie comes hame,-. 256 
There's a Youth in this City, - — ^— — — 237 



There's News Lasses, 
There was once a Day, - 
This is no mine ain Lassie, — 
Thou has left me ever Jamie, 
Tibbie I hae seen the Day, 

To Mary in Heaven, 

True-hearted was He, — »-. 



Wae is my Heart and the Tears in my Ee, , 
Wandering Willie,- 



237 
238 
238 
239 
240 



240 
240 



What can a Young Lassie do wi' an Auld Man, — 240 
Wha is that at my Bower Door, ————— 241 

When Guildford Good, — — — — 241 

Where are the Joys I hae met in the Morning, — 242 
Whistle and I'll come to ye my Lad, -r-,-,.,-, -,,,.., 242 

Willie brew'd a Peek o' Maut, 242 

Will Ye go to the Indies my Mary,— >,>——.— . 245 
Wilt thou be my Dearie, — — — >— -v— . -,. 242 



Yon Wild Mossy Mountains,—— 
Young Jockey was the blythest Lad, 
Young Peggy, 



245 
245 
243 



CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



1783, 1784. 

Love Letters, at 20, in good English, but unavail- 
ing, . 247-9 

To Mr. Murdoch — state of the Poet and his Opi- 

Extracts from the Scrap-book, ^^.^^..^^.^^^^ r, 250-2 

1786. 



To Mr. John Richmond, Edinburgh— first pub- 

To Mr. Macwhinnie, Ayr— satne topic,--— ^wv^^w- 
To Mr. James Smith, Mauchline— route for Ja- 

To Mr. David Brice — same— about to become 
Poet in print — the last foolish action he is to 

To Mr. Aitken, Ayr — Autliorship — Excise — a fu- 

To Mrs Dunlop — first Letter — her order for Co- 



pies — his early devotion to her ancestor. Sir W. 

To Mrs. Stewart of Stair — introductory— hurry — 
going abroad— sends Songs, -^— — ,--— 

From Dr. Blacklock to the Rev. Mr. G. Laurie — • 

with just estimate of the Poet's merits — which 

puts an end to the West India scheme, and brings 

him to Edinburgh, -,— -w,-— — ,- — -^— — -,-- — 

T'rom Sir John Whitefoord — complimentary,-,-— 

From the Rev. Mr. G. Laurie — pressing interview 
with Dr. Blacklock — good advice, — — — — — 

To Gavin Hamilton, Mauchline — ^from Edinburgh 
— the Poet eminent as Thomas a Kempis or 
John Bunyan — favours of the Edinburgh public. 

To Dr. ^Jackenzie, Mauchline— with the Lines on 
Lord Daer, 

1737. 



T^> Mr. John Ballantine, Ayr — occurrences at 

To Mr. \Villiam Chahners, Ayr — the same, and 
humourously apoiogetieal, —————— 257 

To Mr. John Ballantine — Farming projects and 
fartlier mcidents at Edinburgh, — — — — — — 258 

To the Earl of Eghnton— a thankful Letter, 258 

To Mrs. Dunlop— treats of Dr. Moore and his 
Writings — critical remarks on his own — and 
upon him>elf at the height of popular favour,— 259 

To Dr. Moore — introductory — the Poet's views of 

From Dr. Moore — thinks tlie Poet 7iot of the ir- 
riiabile genus — admires his love of Country and 
independent spirit, not less than his Poetical 
Beauties— sends Miss Williams Sonnet on the 
Mountain Daisy, — — —— — — — 260 

r ) Dr. Moore — general character of Miss Williams' 
PoRiiH,— ———„—,„— — —— — 260 

To Mr. .John Ballantine — printing at Edinburgh, 
and getting his;3/iJ3 done,—— ■ 261 

F.oni \h: Moore — with his View of Society— and 
other Works,-— „— — . — ^— 261 

To the Earl of Glencairn — with Lmes for his Pic- 

Ti'^ the Ear! of Buchan — as to Pilgrimages in Cale- 
donia, -. ^-^ - . — — , 262 



Page. 

2C2-3 



Proceedings as to the Tombstone of Fergusson, 2C2-3 
To Mr. James Candlish, Glasgow— the Poet clings 

to Revealed Religion, leaving Spinosa — but still 

the Old Man with his deeds, ————— 264 
To the same — first notice of Johnson's Musical 

Museum, — — — — — — — .- 264 

To Mrs. Dunlop, from Edinburgh— the Bard— his 

situation and views, — — — -.- 264 

To the same, — -^ 265 

To Dr. Moore— leaving Edinburgh for his first 

Pilgrimage, — —————, ^ 265 

To Mrs. Dunlop — sore under her literary criti- 

To the Rev. Dr. Hugh Blair— leave taking, , 265 

From Dr. Blair — who notices his own claims for 
first introducing Ossian's Poems to the world- 
gives the Poet, at parting, a certificate of char 
racter, with much good advice, both wordly and 
poetical, '266 

To Mr. William Creech— with the Elegy during 
the first Pilgrimage, -— — 266 

From Dr. Moore— sparing use hereafter of the 
Provincial Dialect recommended — more valua- 
ble hints also given, — — — — — 267 

To Mr. William Nicoll— the Poet's Itinerary in 
braid Scots, — 267 

From Mr. John Hutcheson, Jamaica — Poems 
excellent— but better in the English style— Scot- 
tish now becoming obsolete — dissuades from the 
West Indies — " there is no encouragement for a ^ 
man of learning and genius there," — — - — --"-' 268 

To Mr. W. Nicoll— on arriving at home— morali- 
zes over the Scenes and Companions of his re- 
cent elevation — gloomily as to the future, — 268 

To Gavin Hamilton — occurrences of the second ^ 

To Mr. \\'alker^B]airTl^^l^o1^e^the same— the 
Duke's family, -^ '-■ 270 

To Mr. Gilbert Burns— further adventures, — 2<0 

From Mr.Ramsay of Oehtertyre— with Inscriptions 
—Tale of Owen Cameron— hints for a Poetical 
Composition on the grand scale and other tastc-_ 
ful and interesting matter, — — — 2/1-2 

From Mr. Walker, Athole-House- particulars of 
the Poet's visit there— female contrivances to^_^ 
prolong his s av,— — . — ^"-^ ^— — — — 275 

From Mr. A. M. an admiring Friend returned 
from abroad— with tributary Verses, — £73 

From Mr. Ramsay to the Rei-. William Young— 
introductory of the Poet, — 274 

From the same to Dr. Blacklock— with thanks for 
the Poet's acquaintance and Son^s— Anecdotes, 274 

From Mr. Murdoch— a kind Letter from an old 
Tutor, rejoicing in the fruits of the genius he 
had helped to cultivate, — — — 275 

From Mr. R. •, from Gordon-Castle— incidents 

of the Poet's visit there, — 275 

From the Rev. John Skinner — prefers the Natural 
to the Classical Poet — his own Poesy — contri- 
butes to the Song-making enterprise, — . 276 

Froiri Mrs. Ross of Kiliaivach— Gaelic airs — the 
Poet's Northern Tour, — — — 277 

To Mr. Dalrymple of Orangefield — Rhymes, 278 

Fragment — Letters to Miis Chalmers, — — 278-81 

To Miss M ' an Essay on the complimentary 

style, ^ 281 

To Mr. Robert Ainslie — friendship,—— — 281 

To Mr. John Ballantine— with Song, V'e Banks 
and Braes o' Bonnie noon, —-.-.,——. — .— 281 



XJl 



CONTENTS. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



To Dr. Moore, 
Life, ^ 



from the Poetr-Sketch of 



Page. 
his 
-281-6 



From Mr. Gilbert Bums, a running Commentary 
on the foregoing.-v,— ....^-......-..-..,--^-,.^-^^286-90 

From Mr. Murdoch, as to the Poet's early Tui- 
tion, — ...-^ .^ 290-2 

From Professor Dugald Stewart — his Sketches of 
the Poet, . . 292-5 

From Mr. Gilbert Burns, giving history of origin 
of the principal Poems, v.,-^.,— ^».-,.^..^.^— ,>w^ 295-7 

From the same, in continuation — and Essay on 
Education of lower Classes, — w 

Death and Character of Gilbert Burns, 

The Poet's Scrap-Book, (farther extracts). 



LETTERS, 1788. 

To Mrs. Dunlop, from Edinburgh— second visit- 
bruised limb,^ ,..,v~,-™^^^,^~,^~— ...,..,^^, 304 

To the same — repelhng insinuation as to irreli- 
gion, ^.^ -,,.,.,_..,.,.^ , 504 

To a Lady— upon the use of sarcasm imputed to 
him against her, — ,.,— ,-^,.„....-w.,-— ^ 31 

To Mr. Robert Cleghorn— origin of the Cheva- 
lier's Lament, .^^^^^^^^.^ 304 

From the same, in answer — and with Farming 
opinions, ^^^^^^.^^^^,^^^^^^,,^,^^,,^^,,,,.^^^.,^,^,^,^,.^^^ 304 

To Mr. James Smith, Avonfield — marriage pre- 



304 



To Mrs. Dunlop — Farming— reasons for and in 

striJctions m the Excise — tart expressions, ^,^^ 305 
From the Rev. John Skinner, with " Charming 
Nancy," by a Buchan Ploughman, and other 
Sc»ngs — his own Latin poetry, ^^^^^^^^.^^^^^^.^^^^ 306 
To Professor Dugald Stewart-Swishes at his going 

to the Continent, -^ r^ 306 

To Mrs. Dunlop —Dryden's Virgil— likes the 
Georgics — disappointed in the ^Eneid, often an 
imitation of Homer— Drvden, Pope's master, 

in penius and harmony of 'language, . 507 

To Mr. Robert Ainslie— a dull Letter may be a 

kind one, ..,.,„^„ 307 

To IMrs. Dunlop— inequality of conditions, -^„^ 307 
To the same— first from Ellisland— his marriage, 308 
To Mr. Peter Hill, with a Ewe-milk Cheese— a 

slice of It good for indigestion of all kinds, 508 

To Mr. Robert Ainslie— friendship— the Poet's 
suspicious temperament— his purpose to leave 
the light troops of Fancy for the squadrons of 
hea\7 -armed Thought-Marriage, ,,.,™-.^-^ 509 
To Mv. Morrison, Wright, Mauchline— the Poet's 
new house, ~^-^,^„^,,,^,^,,„^,.,„,^^,„,^,^,,.^^,.,^ 309 

To Mr. Robert Ainslie— a serious Letter. . 310 

lo Mr. George Lockhart, Glasgow— admiration 

of certain Female beauties, 311 

To Mrs. Dunlop— a luck-penny — Friar's Carse 

Hermitage and other Lines, ^,— ..,..,.-^ 311 

To the same— his answers lo her, not Echoes- 
Marriage Anecdotes— account of his Wife— Let- 
ter writing, __„ 312 

To the same— gossip of a Dinner-party- Life and 
Age of Man— religious impressions, 312 



To Robert Graham, 
dress, .-^ 



Esq. with fir=t Poetical Ad- 



789. 



Page. 

To Sir John Whitefoord— thanks for his voluntary 
defence of the Poet, ,^ 321 

From Mr. Gilbert Burns — New- Year's wishes, ^^^ 321 

To Mrs. Dunlop — the same — approves of set times 
of Devotion— glowing sentiments of a Life be- 
yond the Grave, ,~^^ 321 

From the Rev. P. Carfrae — of Mylne and his 
Works, .^ ^^^ 322 

To Dr. Moore — poetical purposes — worldly state 
of the Poet and his Friends, .w^^..^,^ ^^>^ 322 

'lb Mr. Robert Ainslie — advice and encourage- 
ment, .-.w-.,,-^..-.-^.-.,.— .-^^.^-.-^--^ 325 

To Bishop Geddes — " What am 1 ? — Where I am ? 
— and for what am I destined ?" 324 

To Mrs. Dunlop — contrast of high and low — 
Mylne's Poems, v^-.-^.-^,-,^ 324 

From William Burns, the Poet's Brother — his out- 
set and progress,^-,^— v.,-^,-.-^-.^ ^ 325 

To the Rev. P. Carfrae— Mylne's Poems, v-,-^^ 326 

To Dr. Moore— the Bard's sufferings from the 
Death and Funeral of a sordid Female, 326 

To Mr. Peter Hill— eulogy of frugality— order for 

To Mrs. 'Diml<7pI^^Sketcrc^'i\^ 328 

To Mr. Cunningham — effusions of Friendship, ^ 328 
From Dr. Gregory — iron bound criticism,— ^-^w.- 328 
To Mr. James Hamilton, Glasgow — consolation, 329 

To Mr. William Creech— Toothache, 329 

To Mr. M'Auley of Dumbarton— descriptive of 

the Poet's feelings and condition, . — 330 

To Mr. Robert Ainslie— the same topics, 330 

From Dr. Moore — advice — to preserve and polish 
his lays, and to abandon the Scottish stanza and 

dialect— Zeluco, ^.^ ^-^ 331 

To Mrs. Dunlop — low spirits — religious feelings,-.. 331 

From Miss J. Little— with a poetical tribute, 332 

From Mr. Cunningham— reminiscences of Fergus- 

To Mr. Cunningham, in answer, — ,.^ — ,.-— -^ 333 
To Mr. Dunlop — domestic matters— Poetical Tri- 
bute from Miss L a Future State— Zeluco, 334 

From Dr. Blacklock — a friendly Letter in Rhyme, 334 

To Dr. Blacklock— a suitable answer, 3.55 

To Captain Riddel— the night of the Whistle, — 353 

To the same — the Scrap-book, --^ -,-— ..,^-,— 335 

To Mr. Robert Ainslie — the word " Exciseman," 335 
To Robert Graham, Esq.— Captain Grose and lo- 

cal polemics, ^-v-v^-— ,— -,— ,^,-,— -^^^-^ 356 

To Mrs. Dunlop—" under the miseries of a diseas- 
ed nervous system," v— .>— , 337 

To Sir John Sinclair — the Library of Dunscore,-.. 338 
From Captain Riddel to Sir John— on same sub- 



1790. 



359 



To Mr. Beiigo, Engraver— estiuiate of the Poet 
new neighbour*— matters poetical, 514 

To Miss Chalmers — complimentary to her and 

explanatory of his marriage— present state and 
prospects — Songs, ~v,,-,-,^,._„.,^,,^,^„„,^.^.^_^^^,^^^^^^ 315 

To Mrs. Dunlop— <u'zn5— criticisms— verses, 316 

To Mr. Peter Hill— opinions of the Poetry of 
Thomson, ———-—„,,—..— ,^ 317 

To Mrs. Dunlop — the Major's present, < , ,--,„ 317 

To apologetical for the bloody and tyramiical 

House of Stewart, ~~— -— ~-~„.^,-^„.„,.^ 318 

To Mr. James Johnson, Engraver, Edinburgh 

with Songs and good advice for his Musical Mu- 
seum, ^^^ ,-519 

To Dr. Blacklock — with Poetical Pieces and Songs 
—his Marriage and other movements, 319 

To Mrs. Dunlop— consolatory — the Poet's esti- 
mate of worldly concerns, as against the func- 
tions of the immortal soul — Auld Lang Syne— 
and other Songs, >— ^-^.-v.-.-^-^^..,.,-,^^,,- „ ^ 320 

To a young Lady, enclosuig a Ballad upon her,„. 320 ] Ode, 



To Gilbert Burns— the Players — Verses for them, 
From William Bums — at Newcastle — wants infor- 
mation and fraternal instructions, ^^ 359 

To Mrs. Dunlop— the Poet Falconer— Ballads, ^ 340 

From Mr. Cunningham — friendly notices, 341 

From Mr. Peter Hill— << a poor rascally Gauger," 
— Borough Reform— Books — Note, with secrets 
worth knowing, — ~^~~~-„,^-,~ — ^-,-,— ,-<.^ 341 
To Mr. William Nicoll— last illness and death of 
Peg Nicolson — matters theatrical — ecclesiastical 

squabbling — Exciseman's duty, -— ~ 342 

To Mr. Cunningham — on Letter writing — exist- 
ence — and the course of the Poet's reading — 

Deism — Scepticism, .„,,-,— ,v,^ — w^-— - 34.5 

To Mr. Peter Hill — a large order — existence, 513 

From William Bums, at London — his adventures 
—hears the C<///' preach at Covent Garden Cha- 

To Mrs. Dunlo^i — advantages of the Union— Lord 
Chesterfield — Mirror — Lounger— Man of Feel- 
ing, , 545 

From Mr. Cunningham— friendly notices, 3i5 



To Dv. Moore — Letter writing — Zeluco— Miss 

WiUi.-ims, . . 346 

To Mr. Murdoch— ren wing friendly intercourse, ."146 
From Mt. Murdoch— Death of William Burns, ^ 347 



To Mr. Cunningham— Independence — Smollett' 



^ 348 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

From Dr. Blacklock— a Letter in Rhyme— Dr. 
Anderson and the Bee, -^^~--^^ — ^v^,^..^..,— ^ 348 

From Mr. Cunninprham— »i Song for each of the ^ 
four Seasons suggested, ~~ ■ 349 

To Mrs. Dunlop — Birtli of a Posthumous Child- 
Ode thereon, ^ ~ ~-,^ — 349 

To Crawford Tait, Esq.— recommending a young 
Friend, 349 

To ' Partizanship, .^^ 330 



1791. 

To Mr. Cunningham— Elegy on Miss Burnet, — 350 

To Mr. Peter Hill— Essay on Poverty, 351 

From A. F. Tytlcr, Esq. — Tam o' Shanter, 551 

To Mr. Tytler— in answer, ..,~.^^ — 352 

To Mrs. Dunlop — broken arm — Elegy on Miss 

Burnet— a remembrance, 352 

To Lady Mary Constable— a SnufT-box, .^^ 355 

To Mrs. Graham of Fintry— Ballad on Queen 

Mary— the Poet's gratitude, -^„^-™...-^ — 353 

From the Rev. Principal Baird — Michael Bruce, ~ 353 
To Principal Baird— offering every aid for pub- 
lishing Bruce's Works, -<.^...,,..,-w^^ 354 

To the Rev. Archibald Allison — his Essays on 

To Dr. Moore — Songs and Ballads — Zeleuco — pri- 
vate concerns, --.^^v.^,^ — ,,^,.™w^^,,^„,.^,^-,^,^ 355 

To Mr. Cunningham — Song, " There'll never be 
peace till Jamie come hame," ..^—^ 556 

To Mr. Dalzell, Factor to Lord Glencaini — the 
Poet's grief for his Lordship— his wish to attend 
the Funeral „^,-.,.,-^™^..-^^,-~ — „ — .,^~, 556 

From Dr. Moore — criticises Tam o' Shanter, and 
other pieces— solicits the Poet's remarks on Ze- 
leuco— advises him to be more chary of givmg 
Copies— and to use the modern English, 55Q 

To Mrs- Dunlop— a domestic occurrence— exclu- 
sive advantages of humble life, „.^.-,.-^-,.~^^ 557 

To Mr. Cunningham — in behalf of a persecuted 
Schoolmaster, 358 

From the Earl of Buchan— crowning of Thomson's 
Bust at Ednam, ^^-^^-.^..-^...-^v. — . 358 

To the same — in answer, 359 

To Mr. Thomas Sloan, Manchester — tlisappoint- 
ment — perseverance recommended — The Poet's 
Roup, „^^^.^ 359 

From the Earl of Buchan — suggests Harvest-home 
for a theme to the Muse, ^^v......-^^^-.-..^-^ 559 

To Lady E. Cunningham — condolence on the 
death of her Brother, Lord Glencairn, ^^^^ 360 

To Mr. Robert Ainslie— a Mind diseased, „,~^,^,^ 3()0 

From Sir John Whitefoord— Lament for Lord 

From A. Fl'TytlerTEsq.— the Whistle— the La- ^ 

To Miss Davi€s — sentimental — with some hints as 

to a Radical Reform, — ^^^..^^^.^^ ^~„„^ 561 

To Mrs. Dunloj! — with the Death-Song — High- 

To Captain Grose — lauds Professor Dugald Stew. 

To the same — Witch Stories of Kirk-Alloway, — 565 
To Mrs. Dunlop — animadversions of the Board — 

malicious insinuations — a cup of kindness,^ — 3'i4 
To Mr. W. Smellie— Introductory of Mrs. Riddel, 364 
To Mr. W. NicoU— admiration of, and gratitude 

for sage advice, ,^.^.w-^.~ 565 

To Mr. Cunningham — the Poet's Arms, 565 

To Mr. Clarke - invitation to come to the Country, 566 
To Mrs. Dunlop — a PLitonic attachment and a 

Ball.nd- Religion indispensible to make Man 

bette.r and happier, .^^.^-^...^..^.^.^^ 567 

To Mr. Cunningham — nocturnal ravings, 367 

To Mrs. I unlop— difference in Farming for one's 

self and Fanning for another, ~ 368 

To the same — a Family uifliction— c<mdolence, ^ 369 
To the same — shortness and uncertauity of Lifi 

Rights of Woman. ^^ 

To Robert Graham, Esq.— justifies himself against 

the charge of disaffection to the Briti-:h Consti. 

To Mrs. Dunlop— the Poet's improved habits — al- 



Pagt. 
luslons to her suggestions for his ofHcial promo- 

To Miss B. of York — moralizes over the chance. 

medleys of human intercourse, ^.^ ^.^,^ — , 371 

To Patrick Miller, Esq. of Dalswinton — aai honest 

To John Francis Erskine of Mar, Esq. — the Poet's 
independence of sentiment, and particularly his 
opinions as to Reform eloquently justified, -, 372~3 

To Mr. Robert Ainslie — Spunkie — schoolcraft 
caught by contact, -.-.. r. „ 373-4 

To Miss K delicate flattery to a Beauty, 374 

To Lady Glencairn— gratitude to her Family — 
from an independent Exciseman, .^^ — ..-->.-.- 374-5 

To Miss Chalmers — a curious analysis which shews 
" a Wight nearly as miserable as a Poet," 375 

To John M'Murdo, Esq.— out of debt, ~,^ 375-6 



LETTERS, 1791., 1795, 1796. 

To the Earl of Buchan— with " Bruce's Address," 376 

To Mrs. Riddel— Dumfries Theatricals, 376 

To a Lady — the same, 376 

To Mr. ■ the Poet's Dreams of Excise promo- 
tion and literary leisure, ,-.„,— .,,^ — 376-7 

To Mrs. Riddel — Theatricals and lobster-coated 

To the same — ginhorse routine of Excise business, 377 

To the same — effects of a cool reception, 377 

To the same — a spice of caprice,^— -^.—^—^~~.~ 378 

To the same — firm yet conciliating, . 378 

To John Syme, Esq. — praises of Mr. A. — Song on 

Mrs. Oswald,—. « 578 

To iM iss in defence of his reputation — re- 
claims his MS 378-9 



To Mr Cunningham — a Mind Diseased — Religion 

necessary to Man, 
To a Lady — from the Shades, ..^-~- 



379 

580 



To the Earl of Glencairn— the Poet's gratitude to 

his late Brother,.^ ^ 380 

To Dr. Anderson — his Work, the Lives of the 

To Mrs. Riddel — solitary confinement good to re- 
claim Sinners — Ode for Birth-day of Washing. 

ton,. ^^ 381 

To Mr. James Johnson — Songs and projects for 

the Museum,.... ....™........... ^ 381 

To Mr. Miller of Dalswinton— declines to be a re- 
gular contributor to the Poet's Corner of the 

Morning Chronicle, ....... 381 

To Mr. Gavin Hamilton— the Poet recommends a 

particular regimen to him,.-~-~ 382 

To Mr. Samuel Clarke — penitence after excess, ... 382 
To ]\Ir. Alexander Findlater — Supervisor — " So 

much for schemes,"....-........... .. . 583 

To the Editors of the Morning Chronicle — its in- 
dependence, ...........^.-~....~. 383 

To Mr. W. Dunbar — New-Vear wishes, 385 

To Miss Fontenelle — with a Prologue for her be- 
To Mrs. Dunlop — ^cares of the Married Life — Dura- 
fries Theatricals — Cowper's Task— the Poet's 

Scrap-book, ^ 384-5 

To Mr. Heron of Heron— Political Ballads — 
Dreams of Excise promotion, 385 



To the Right Hon. W. 
Scots Distillers, 



Pitt— in behalf of the 



386 



To the Magistrates of Dumfries— Free School E- 
ducation, 1 ^ 387 

To Mrs. Dunlop in London — Mr. Thomson's 
Work — acting Supervisor — New Year wishes — 
Dr. Moore, ..~...~. ............... — ....... 387-8 

To Mrs. Riddel — Anacharsis — the Muses still pre- 

To Mrs. Dunloj) — in affliction, .. 588 

To Mrs. Riddel— on Birth-day loyalty, 388 

.. 369 j To Mr. James Johnson — the Museum — aconsum- 

— ing illnes.s hangs over the Poet,..,^...™™.., ... 3S9 

~ 36y I To Mr. Cunningham — from the Brow, Sea-bath- 
ing Quarters — sad picture, . .. ... 589 

To Mrs. Burns — from the Brow — strengthened — , 

but total decay of appetite. ......_„ 389 

To Mrs. Dunlop— a last farewell, .....^v^..,..-,...,, 3S9 



CONTENTS OF THE POET'S CORRESPONDENCE 
WITH MR. GEORGE THOMSON. 



Page. 

From Mr. Thomson— soliciting the Poet's aid to 
the Select Melodies, .~,^^^v.,„.„..„^ 591 

The Poefs answer — frankly embarking in the 
Woik,-^^ .■^^.^^,^^^ , 591-2 

From Mr. Thomson — views of conducting the 
Work— and with 11 Songs for New V'erses, 392 

From the Poet— with the "Lea Rig"—" My Nan- 
nie O"— " Will ye go to tlie Indies my Marv," 595 

From the Poet — with " My Wife's a wanton wee 
thing" — " O saw ye bonhie Lesley," -,^,,,..,^~w^ 595 

From the Poet— with " Ye Banks'and Braes ;ind 
Streams around the Castle o' Montgomer>%"-^, 594 

From Mr. Thomson— criticisms and corrections,^ 594 

From the Poet — admits some corrections, " but 
cannot alter b mnie Lesley" — additional Verse 
for the " Lea Rig," ~^-,^™ 595 

From the Poet — with " Auld Rob Morris" and 
" Duncan Gray,",-- ^.^^^^^ 595 

From the Poet — with " Poortith Cauld" and 
" Galla Water,"-,-,— .,,~™-.-.,,,-..^ 595 

From Mr. Thomson — laudatory for favours re- 
ceived — details the plan of his Work— P. S. from 
the Honourable A. Erskine — a brother Poet 
and contributor, ,-„, 396 

From the Poet — approves of the details — offers 
matter anecdotic— the Song " Lord Gregory" — 
English and Scots sets of it, — , 596-7 

From the Poet — with " Wandering Willie," — „^ 597 

From the Poet — " Open the Door to me O,",,^.^., 597 

From the Poet—" True-hearted was he,"-,—,-— 597 

From Mr. ] homson — with complete list of Songs, 
apd farther details of the Work, ^" 597-8 

From the Poet — with " The Soldier's return" — 
" Meg o' the Mill," ~— „,—,—,— - — 598 

From the Poet — Song making his hobby — offers 
valuable hints for enriching and improving the 

From Mr. Thomson — in answer, — .„.,—,——,— 599 

From the Poet— fartlier hints and critical remarks 
— sends Song on a celebrated Toast to suit 

Tune, " Bonnie Dundee," — —w— 599 

From the Poet — with " The last time I came o'er 

From Mr. Thomson — excuses his taste as against 
the Poet's, —— —, — 400 

From the Poet — dogmatically set against altering, 400 

'J he Poet to Mr. Thomson— Fraser the Hautbov 
Player— Tune and Song, " The Quaker's Wife" 
— " Blythe hae I been on you Hill," -,-— — lO^'-l 

The same — mad ambition — "Logan Braes" — Fi'og- 
ment from Witherspoon's Coiicction — " O gin 
my love were yon Red Rose,"—-.—. ,-,———, 401 

?.Ir Thomson — m answer — a change of Partners in 
the Work,-w . ^-— — — 401 

The Poet to Mr. Thomson — Tune and Air of 
" Bonnie Jean" — the Poet'.s Heroines,— —,—.~,. 402 

The same — a remittance acknowledged — " Flow- 
ers of the Forest"— the Authoress— Pinkertcn's 
Ancient Ballads — prophecies, — ,- — — 402 

Mr. Thomson to the Poet— Airs waiting the Mu- 

The Poet to Mr. Thomson— Tune, ' Robin A- 
dair" — " Phillis the Fair" to it — " Cauld Kail 
in Aberdeen," — — ,,— — — .— — — 405 

From Mr. Thomson— grateful for the Poet's "va- 
lued Epistles" — wants Versos for " Down the 
bum Davie" — mentions Drawings for the Work, 405 

Fro:n the Poet— Tunc " Robin Ada'r" again — 
.se?ii!s " Had I a Cave" to it — Gaelic origin of the 



Page. 
From the Poet— with New Song to " Allan Wa- 

From the same — with Song " Whistle and I'll 
come to you, my Lad," and " Phillis tJie Fair," 
to the " Muckih' o' Genrdie's byre," — — .— ^ 404 

From the same — " Cauld Kail" — a Gloamin' Shot 
at the Muses,— — ——„——,—,—— 405 

From the same — " Dainty Davie" — four lines of 
Song and four of Choi-us, ——,—,—— 405 

From JMr. Thomson— profuse acknowledgments 
for many favours, 405 

From the 'Poet— Peter Pindar — " Scots wha hae 
wi' Wallace bled" — " So may God defend the 
cause of truth and liberty as he did that day,"— 405 

From the same— with Song " Behold the hour the 
Boat arrives," to the Highland Air " Oran paoil," 406 

From Mr. Thomson — " Bruce's Address" — the Air 
" Lewis Gordon" better for it than " Hey tuttie 
tatie" — verbal criticisms, — ,—————, 4.''6 

From the Poet — additional Verses to " Dainty 
Davie"—" Through the wood, Laddie"— " Cow- 
den-knowes" — " Laddie lie near me" — tlie Poet's 
form of Song making— " Gill Morrice"— " High- 
land Laddie"—" Auld Sir Simeon" — " Fee him 
Father" — " There's nae luck about the House" 
— the finest of Love Ballads, " Saw ye my Fa- 
ther" — " cdlin hame" — sends "Auld Lang 
Syne" — farther notices of other Songs and Bal- 

From the Poet— rejects the verba) criticism on the 
Ode, " Pruee's Address," 408 

From Mr. Tiiomson — Strictures on the Poet's no- 
tices of the above Songs— again nibbling at the 

From the Poet—" The Ode pleases me so much I 
cannot alter it" — sends Song " Where are the 
Joys I l;ae met in the moriun'," — 409 

From the Poet — sends " Deluded Swain" and 
" Raving Winds around her blowing" — Airs 
and Songs, to adopt or reject — difl'erences of 

From the same — " I'hine am I my Faithful Fair" 
— to the " Quaker's Wife," which is just the 

Gaelic Air " Liggeram cosh," — — . 410 

From Mr. Thomson — in answer, 410 

From the Poet — Song to " My Jo Ja et,"— — — 410 
From Mr. Thomson— proposed conference— Re- . 

marks on Drawings and Songs, ————— 410 
From the Poet — same subjects — Pleyel — a detenu 
— wliereby hinderanee or the Work — Song " The 

Banks of Cree," — ,- .— — 411 

From the same— "The auspicious period preg- 
nant with the hapjiincss ot Millioi's" — Inscrip- 
tion on a Copy of the W"ork presented to Miss 

Graham of Fintry, „ 411 

From Mr. Thomson -in answer, 411 

From the Poet — with Song " On the Seas and far 

From Mr. Thomson— criticises that Songseverely, 412 

From the Poet— witlidrawing it — " making a Song 
is like begetting a Son" — sends " Ca' the yewes 
to the kn'owcs,"— — — — — 412 

From the same— Irish Air— sends Song to it " Sa^ 
flaxen were her linglets" — Poet's taste in Music 
like Frederic of Prussia's— has begun " O let mc 
in this ae night" — Epigram, — — ~— — 412 

From Mr. 'J homson — profuse of acknowlcdg- 

From the same — Peter Pindar's task completed — 
Ritson's Collection—dressing up of Old ."Songs, 415 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



Page. 

From the Poet^-" Cralgie-burn Wood" and the 
heroine — Recipe for Song nuking — Son^j " Saw 
ye my Phcly" — " Tlie Fosie" — " Donochthead" 
not the Poet's — " Whistle o'er tlie lave o't" liis 
— so is " Blythe was slie" — sends Song " How 
lang and dreary is the night" — " Let not Wo- 
man e'er complain" — " Sleep'st thou" — East 
Indian Air— Song " The Auld Man," 414 

From Mr. Thomson— in acknowledgment, and 
with farther commissions, ^^^^^^.^.^ — 415 

From the Poet— thanks for Kitson— Songof Chlo- 
ris — Love, Conjugal and Platonic — " Chloe" — 
" Lassie wi' the lint-white locks" — " Maria's 
dwelling" — " Banks and Braes o' bonnie Doon" 
— Recipe to make a Scots Tune — humble re- 
quest for a Copy of the Work to give to a fe- 
male friend, v.,-,^-^-,„„~^,,,,^ 416-17 

From Mr. Thomson— in answer — criticisms — sends 
three Copies, and as welcome to 20 as to a pinch 

From the Poet — Duet completed — sends Songs 
" O Philly happy be that day" — " Contented 
wi' little"—" Canst thou leave me thus my 
Katy" — Remarks on Songs and the Stock and 

From Mr. Thomson — modest acknowledgments — 

Pictures for the Work, ^ 419 

From the Poet— with Song " Nannie's awa"— Pic- 

From the same — originality a coy feature in 
composition — sends " A man's a man for a' 
that" — which shows that Song making is not 
confined to love and wine — new set of •' Crai- 

gie-burn Wood," — — -~..-,..,,.,..^<.^,,^»-^ 419 

From Mr. Thomson — in acknowledgment, .~...,^^^ 419 
From the Poet — with, " O let me in this ae Night," 

From the same — abuse of sweet Ecclefechan — air, 
'• We'll gang nae mair to yon Town," is worthy 
of verses, ^-........-vw-..,^ .~.,,^^-,.,~.,..w,wv-v. 420 

From Mr. Thorasoa— in answer,* 



Page. 

From the Poet— with four .Songs, " The Wood 
lark"—" Long, long the Night"— " Their groves 
o' sweet Mynies" — " 'Twas na her bonnie blue 
Een was my ruin, ^^...^ 420 

From Mr. Thomson— acknowledgments— pictures 
for the work, ^ —v.,^ ^ 420-1 

From the Poet— with two Songs, " How cruel are 
the Parents" — " Mark yonder Pomp" — adds, 
" Your Tailor could not be more punctual," 421 

From the same — acknowledgment of a present, 421 

From Mr. Thomson — Clarke's Mr to Mallet's Bal- 
lad of " William and Margaret," ^,^,-,^,..,,~, 421 

From the Poet — with four Songs a.nd Verses, 
" O Whistle and I'll come to ye, my Lad" — " O 
this is no my ain Lassie" — " Now Sjjring has 
clad the Grove in Green" — " O bonnie was yon 
rosy Brier," — Inscription on his Poems present- 
ed to a young Lady, 422 

From Mr. Thomson — in acknowledgment, ,,^,-w-. 422 

From the Poet — with English Song, " Forlorn, 

From the same — with Song, " Last May a bra' 
Wooer cam' down the lang Glen,"— a Frag- 

From Mr. Thomson— in answer, ^ 423 

From the same — after an awful pause, ^^^,.,^^,^^,^ 423 
From the Poet — acknowledges a Present to Mrs. 
B. — sends Song, " Hey for a Lass wi' a Toch- 

From Mr. Thomson — in answer, ....^..w^, 424 

From the Poet — health has deserted him, not the 

Muse, -„-^^v.--ww.,..-.~.^..„..w.^,^^^-,*^~~..~.~^^-.-.^ 424 

From Mr. Thomson — in answer, , 424 

From the Poet — with Song, " Here's a health to 

them that's awa." 425 

From the same— announces his purpose to revise 

all his Songs, - 425 

From the same— at Sea-bathing — depressed and in 

extremity, ^,.^,.^,^ ..v.-,^.-.-.^-— .-~.*^.**^-^„....^ 425 

From Mr. Thomson— vyith a Remittance,«»»«wy. 425 



LIFE 



OF 



ROBERT BURNS, 



CHAPTER I. 

Contents. — The Poet's Birth, 17 59-— Circumstances and peculiar Character of his Father 
and Mother — Hardships of his Early Years — Sources, such as they were, of his Mental 
Improvement — Cuimnenceth Tiove and Poetry at 16. 



" My father was a fanner upon the Carrick Border, 
And soberly he brought me up in decency and order." . 

Robert Burns was born on the 25th of January 1759, in a clay-built 
cottage, about two miles to the south of the town of Ayr, and in the im- 
mediate vicinity of the Kirk of Alloway, and the " Auld Brig o* Doon." 
About a week afterwards, part of the frail dwelling, which his father had 
constructed with his own hands, gave way at midnight ; and the infant 
poet and his mother were carried through the storm, to the shelter of a 
neighbouring hovel. The father, William Burnes or Bumess, (for so he 
spelt his name), was the son of a farmer in Kincardineshire, whence he re- 
moved at 19 years of age, in consequence of domestic embarrassments. 
The farm on which the family lived, formed part of the estate forfeited, 
in consequence of the rebellion of 1715, by the noble house of Keith 
Marischall ; and the poet took pleasure in saying, that his humble ances- 
tors shared the principles and the fall of their chiefs. Indeed, after Wil- 
liam Burnes settled in the west of Scotland, there prevailed a vague no- 
tion that he himself had been out in the insurrection of 1745-6 ; but though 
Robert would fain have interpreted his father's siJence in favour of a tale 
which flattered his imagination, his brother Gilbert always treated it as a 
mere fiction, and such it was. Gilbert found among his father's papers a 
certificate of the minister of his native parish, testifying that " the bearer, 
William Burnes, had no hand in the late wicked rebellion." It is easy to 
suppose that when any obscure northern stranger fixed himself in those 
days in the Low Country, such rumours were likely enough to be circu- 
lated concerning him. 



ii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

William Burnes laboured for some years in the neighbourhood of Edin- 
burgh as a gardener, and then found his way into Ayrshire. At the time 
when Robert was born, he was gardener and overseer to a gentleman of 
small estate, Mr. Ferguson of Doonholm ; but resided on a few acres of 
land, which he had on lease from another proprietor, and where he had 
originally intended to establish himself as a nurseryman. He married 
Agnes Brown in December 1757, and the poet was their first-born. Wil- 
liam Burnes seems to have been, in his humble station, a man eminently 
entitled to respect. He had received the ordinary learning of a Scottish 
parish school, and profited largely both by that and by his own experience 
in the world. " I have met with few," (said the poet, after he had him- 
self seen a good deal of mankind), " who understood men, their manners, 
and their ways, equal to my father." He was a strictly religious man. 
There exists in his handwriting a little manual of theology, in the form 
of a dialogue, which he drew up for the use of his children, and from 
which it appears that he had adopted more of the Arminian than of the 
Calvinistic doctrine ; a circumstance not to be wondered at, when we con- 
sider that he had been educated in a district which was never numbered 
among the strongholds of the Presbyterian church. The affectionate re- 
verence with which his children ever regarded him, is attested by all who 
have described him as he appeared in his domestic circle ; but there needs 
no evidence beside that of the poet himself, who has painted, in colours 
that will never fade, " the saint, the father, and the husband," of The 
Cottar s Saturday Night. 

Agnes Brown, the wife of this good man, is described as " a very sagaci- 
ous woman, without any appearance of forwardness, or awkwardness of man- 
ner;" and it seems that, in features, and, as he grew up, in general address, 
the poet resembled her more than his father. She had an inexhaustible store 
of ballads and traditionary tales, and appears to have nourished his infant 
imagination by this means, while her husband paid more attention to " the 
weightier matters of the law." These worthy people laboured hard for 
the support of an increasing family. William was occupied with Mr. Fer- 
guson's service, and Agnes contrived to manage a small dairy as well as 
her children. But though their honesty and diligence merited better things, 
their condition continued to be very uncomfortable ; and our poet, (in his 
letter to Dr. Moore), accounts distinctly for his being born and bred " a 
very poor man's son," by the remark, that " stubborn ungainly integrity, 
and headlong ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying circumstances." 

These defects of temper did not, however, obscure the sterling worth 
of William Burnes in the eyes of Mr. Ferguson ; who, when his garde- 
ner expressed a wish to try his for tuneon a farm of his, then vacant, and 
confessed at the same time his inability to meet the charges of stocking it, 
at once advanced £100 towards the removal of the difficulty. Burnes ac- 
cordingly removed to this farm (that of Mount Oliphant, in the parish of 
Ayr) at Whitsuntide 1766, when his eldest son was between six and seven 
years of age. But the soil proved to be of the most ungrateful descrip- 
tion ; and Mr. Ferguson dying, and his affairs falling into the hands of a 
hSiY&h. factor, (who afterwards sat for his picture in the Tiva Dogs), Burnes 
was glad to give up his bargain at the end of six years. He then removed 
about ten miles to a larger and better farm, that of Lochlea, in the parish 
of Tarbolton. But here, after a short interval of prosperity, some unfor- 
tunate misunderstanding took place as to the conditions of the lease ; the 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. iii 

dispute was referred to arbitration ; and, after three years of suspense, the 
result involved Burnes in ruin. The worthy man lived to know of this de- 
cision ; but death saved him from witnessing its necessary consequences. 
He died of consumption on the IStli February 1784'. Severe labour, and 
hopes only renewed to be baffled, had at last exhausted a robust but irri- 
table structure and temperament of body and of mind. 

In the midst of the harassing struggles which found this termination, 
William Burnes appears to have used his utmost exertions for promoting 
the mental improvement of his children — a duty rarely neglected by Scot- 
tish parents, however humble their station, and scanty their means may 
be. Robert was sent, in his sixth year, to a small school at Alloway 
Miln, about a mile from the house in which he was born ; but Campbell, 
the teacher, being in the course of a few months removed to another 
situation, Burnes and four or five of his neighbours engaged Mr. John 
Murdoch to supply his place, lodging him by turns in their own houses, 
and ensuring to him a small payment of money quarterly. Robert Burns, 
and Gilbert his next brother, were the aptest and the favourite pupils of 
this worthy man, who survived till very lately, and who has, in a letter 
published at length by Currie, detailed, with honest pride, the part which 
he had in the early education of our poet. He became the frequent in- 
mate and confidential friend of the family, and speaks with enthusiasm of 
the virtues of William Burnes, and of the peaceful and happy life of his 
humble abode. 

" He was (says Murdoch) a tender and affectionate father ; he took plea- 
sure in leading his children in the path of virtue ; not in driving them, as 
some parents do, to the performance of duties to which they themselves are 
averse. He took care to find fault but very seldom ; and therefore, when 
he did rebuke, he was listened to with a kind of reverential awe. A look 
of disapprobation was felt ; a reproof was severely so : and a stripe with 
the tawz, even on the skirt of the coat, gave heart-felt pain, produced a 
loud lamentation, and brought forth a flood of tears. 

" He had the art of gaining the esteem and good-will of those that were 
labourers under him. I think I never saw him angry but twice : the one 
time it was with the foreman of the band, for not reaping the field as he 
was desired ; and the other time, it was with an old man, for using smutty 
inuendos and double entendres." " In this mean cottage, of which I my- 
self was at times an inhabitant, I really believe there dwelt a larger por- 
tion of content than in any palace in Europe. The Cottar s Saturday Night 
will give some idea of the temper and manners that prevailed there." 

The boys, under the joint tuition of Murdoch and their father, made ra- 
pid progress in reading, spelling, and writing ; they committed psalms and 
hymns to memory with extraordinary ease — the teacher taking care (as he 
tells us). that they should understand the exact meaning of each word in 
the sentence ere they tried to get it by heart. " As soon," says he, " as 
they were capable of it, I taught them to turn verse into its natural prose 
order ; sometimes to substitute synonymous expressions for poetical words ; 
and to supply all the ellipses. Robert and Gilbert were generally at the 
upper end of the class, even when ranged with boys by far their seniors. 
The books most commonly used in the school were the Spelling Book. 
the New Testament^ the Bible, Mason's Collection of Prose and Verse, and 
Fishers English Grammar "-^^^ Gilbert always appeard to me to possess a 
more lively imagination, and to be more of the wit, than Robert, l at- 



iV LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

tempted to teach them a httle church-music. Here they were left far be- 
hind by all the rest of the school. Robert's ear, in particular, was remark- 
ably dull, and his voice untunable. It was long before I could get them 
to distinguish one tune from another. Robert's countenance was general- 
ly grave and expressive of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind. 
Gilbert's face said, Mirth^ with thee I mean to live ; and certainly, if any 
person who knew the two boys, had been asked which of them was the 
most likely to court the Muses, he would never have guessed that Robert 
had a propensity of that kind." 

« At those years," says the poet himself, in 1787, " I was by no means 
a favourite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, 
a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot 
piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost 
the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar ; 
and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substan- 
tives, verbs, and particles. In my infant and boyish days, too, I owed 
much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her 
ignorance, credulity, and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest 
collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, 
brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, 
wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other 
trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry ; but had so strong 
an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I 
sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places ; and though nobody 
can be more sceptical than I am in such matters, yet it often takes an ef- 
fort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors. The earliest composition 
that I recollect taking pleasure in, was The Vision of Mirza^ and a hymn 
of Addison's, beginning, How are thy servants blest, O Lord ! I particular- 
ly remember one half-stanza, which was music to my boyish ear — 

" For though on dreadful whirls we hung 
High on the broken wave — " 

I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my school- 
books. The two first books I ever read in private, and which gave me 
more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were. The Life of Han- 
nibal, and The History of Sir William Wallace. Hannibal gave my young 
ideas such a turn, that I used to strut in raptures up and down after the 
recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier ; 
while the story of Wallace poured a tide of Scottish prejudice into my 
veins, which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal 
rest." 

Murdoch continued his instructions until the family had been about two 
years at Mount Oliphant — when he left for a time that part of the country. 
" There being no school near us," says Gilbert Burns, " and our little ser- 
vices being already useful on the farm, my father undertook to teach us arith- 
metic in the winter evenings by candle light — and in this way my two elder 
sisters received all the education they ever received." Gilbert tells an anec- 
dote which must not be omitted here, since it furnishes an early instance 
of the liveliness of his brother's imagination. Murdoch, being on a visit 
to the family, read aloud one evening part of the tragedy of Titus Andro- 
nicus — the circle listened with the deepest interest until he came to Act 
2; sc. 5, where Lavinia is introduced " with her hands cut off, and her 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. v 

tongue cut out." At this the children entreated, with one voice, in an 
agony of distress, that their friend would read no more. " If ye will not 
hear the play out," said William Burnes, " it need not be left with you." 
— « If it be left," cries Robert, " I will burn it." His father was about 
to chide him for this return to Murdoch's kindness — but the good young 
man interfered, saying he liked to see so much sensibility, and left The 
School for Love in place of his truculent tragedy. At this time Robert 
was nine years of age. " Nothing," continues Gilbert Burns, " could be 
more retired than our general manner of living at Mount Oliphant ; we 
rarely saw any body but the members of our own family. There were no 
boys of our own age, or near it, in the neighbourhood. Indeed the greatest 
part of the land in the vicinity was at that time possessed by shopkeepers, 
and people of that stamp, who had retired from business, or who kept their 
farm in the country, at the same time that they followed business in town. 
My father was for some time almost the only companion we had. He con- 
versed familiarly on all subjects with us, as if we had been men ; and was 
at great pains, while we accompanied him in the labours of the farm, to 
lead the conversation to such subjects as might tend to increase our know- 
ledge, or confirm us in virtuous habits. He borrowed Salmons Geogra- 
phical Grammar for us, and endeavoured to make us acquainted with the 
situation and history of the different countries in the world ; while, from a 
book-society in Ayr, he procured for us the reading of Derharns Physico 
and Astro- Theology, and Rays Wisdom of God in the Creation, to give us 
some idea of astronomy and natural history. Robert read all these books 
with an avidity and industry scarcely to be equalled. My father had been 
a subscriber to Stachhouses History of the Bible. From this Robert col- 
lected a competent knowledge of ancient history ; for no book was so vo- 
luminous as to slacken his industry, or so antiquated as to damp his researches.^' 
A collection of letters by eminent English authors, is mentioned as having 
fallen into Burns's hands much about the same time, and greatly delighted 
him. 

When Burns was about thirteen or fourteen years old, his father sent 
him and Gilbert " week about, during a summer quarter," to the parish 
school of Dalrymple, two or three miles distant from Mount Oliphant, for 
the improvement of their penmanship. The good man could not pay two 
fees ; or his two boys could not be spared at the same time from the la- 
bour of the farm ! " We lived very poorly," says the poet. " I was a dex- 
terous ploughman for my age ; and the next eldest to me was a brother, 
(Gilbert), who could drive the plough very well, and help me to thrash the 
corn. A novel writer might perhaps have viewed these scenes with some 
satisfaction, but so did not I. My indignation yet boils at the recollection 
of the scoundrel factor's insolent letters, which used to set us all in tears." 
Gilbert Burns gives his brother's situation at this period in greater detail 
— " To the buifetings of misfortune," says he, " we could only oppose 
hard labour and the most rigid economy. We lived very sparingly. For 
several years butcher's meat was a stranger in the house, while all the 
members of the family exerted themselves to the utmost of their strength 
and rather beyond it, in the labours of the farm. My brother, at the age 
of thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of corn, and at fifteen was the 
principal labourer on the farm, for we had no hired servant, male or female. 
The anguish of mind we felt at our tender years, under these straits and 
difficulties, was very great. To think of our father growing old (for he was 



vi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

now above fifty), broken clown with the long-continued fatigues of his life, 
with a wife and five other children, and in a declining state of circumstances, 
these reflections produced in my brother's mind and mine sensations of the 
deepest distress. I doubt not but the hard labour and sorrow of this pe- 
riod of his life, was in a great measure the cause of that depression of spirits 
with which Robert was so often afflicted through his whole life afterwards. 
At this time he was almost constantly afflicted in the evenings with a dull 
headach, which, at a future period of his life, was exchanged for a palpita- 
tion of the heart, and a threatening of fainting and suffocation in his bed, in 
the night-time." 

The year after this, Burns was able to gain three weeks of respite, one 
before, and two after the harvest, from the labours which were thus strain- 
ing his youthful strength. His tutor Murdoch was now established in the 
town of Ayi*, and the boy spent one of these weeks in revising the English 
grammar with him ; the other two were given to French. He laboured 
enthusiastically in the new pursuit, and came home at the end of a fort- 
night with a dictionary and a Telemaque^ of which he made such use at his 
leisure hours, by himself, that in a short time (if we may believe Gilbert) 
he was able to understand any ordinary book of French prose. His pro- 
gress, whatever it really amounted to, was looked on as something of a 
prodigy ; and a writing-master in Ayr, a friend of Murdoch, insisted that 
Robert Burns must next attempt the rudiments of the Latin tongue. He 
did so, but with little perseverance, we may be sure, since the results were 
of no sort of value. Burns's Latin consisted of a few scraps of hackneyed 
quotations, such as many that never looked into Ruddiman's Rudiments 
can apply, on occasion, quite as skilfully as he ever appears to have done. 
The matter is one of no importance ; we might perhaps safely dismiss it 
with parodying what Ben Jonson said of Shakspeare ; he had little 
French, and no Latin. He had read, however, and read well, ere his six- 
teenth year elapsed, no contemptible amount of the literature of his own 
country. In addition to the books which have already been mentioned, he 
tells us that, ere the family quitted Mount Oliphant, he had read " the 
Spectator, some plays of Shakspeare, Pope, (the Homer included), TuU 
and Dickson on Agriculture, Locke on the Human Understanding, Jus- 
tice's British Gardener s Directory, Boyle's Lectures, Taylor's Scripture 
Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select Collection of English Songs, Hervey's 
Meditations,'' (a book which has ever been very popular among the Scottish 
peasantry), " and the Works of Allan Ramsay ;" and Gilbert adds to this 
list Pamela, (the first novel either of the brothers read), two stray vo- 
lumes of Peregrine Pickle, two of Count Fathom, and a single volume of 
" some English historian," containing the reigns of James L, and his son. 
The " Collection of Songs," says Burns, was my vade mecum, I pored 
over them, driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by 
verse ; carefully noticing the true, tender, or sublime, from affectation or 
fustian ; and I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic-craft, 
such as it is." 

He derived, during this period, considerable advantages from the vicinity 
of Mount Oliphant to the town of Ayr — a place then, and still, distmguish- 
ed by the residence of many respectable gentlemen's families, and a con- 
sequent elegance of society and manners, not common in remote provin- 
cial situations. To his friend, Mr. Murdoch, he no doubt owed, in the first 
instance, whatever attentions he received there from people older as well 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. vK 

as higher tlian himself: some such persons appear to have taken a pleasure 
in lending him books, and surely no kindness could have been more useful 
to him than this. As for his coevals, he himself says, very justl}', " It is 
not commonly at that green age that our young gentry have a just sense 
of the distance between them and their ragged playfellows. My young 
superiors," he proceeds, " never insulted the clouterly appearance of my 
])lough-boy carcass, the two extremes of which were often exposed to all 
the inclemencies of all the seasons. They would give me stray volumes 
of books : among them, even then, I could pick up some observation ; and 
one, whose heart I am sure not even the Munny Begum scenes have tainted, 
helped me to a little French. Parting with these, my young friends and 
benefactors, as they occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was of- 
ten to me a sore atHiction, — but I was soon called to more serious evils." — 
(Letter to Moore). The condition of the family during the last two years 
of their residence at Mount Oliphant, when the struggle which ended in 
their removal was rapidly approaching its crisis, has been already describ- 
ed ; nor need we dwell again on the untimely burden of sorrow, as well as 
toil, which fell to the share of the youthful poet, and which would have 
broken altogether any mind wherein feelings like his had existed, without 
strength like his to control them. The removal of the family to Lochlea, 
in the parish of Tarbolton, took place when Burns was in his sixteenth year. 
He had some time before this made his first attempt in verse, and the occa- 
sion is thus described by himself in his letter to Moore. " This kind of life — 
the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave, 
brought me to my sixteenth year ; a little before which period I first commit- 
ted the sin of Rhyme. You know our country custom of coupling a man and 
woman together as partners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth au- 
tumn my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. 
My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that 
language ; but you know the Scottish idiom — she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie 
lass. In short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that 
dehcious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse pru- 
dence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our 
dearest blessing here below ! How she caught the contagion, I cannot tell : 
you medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the 
touch, &c. ; but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed, I did not know 
myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in 
the evening from our labours ; why the tones of her voice made my heart- 
strings thrill like an /Eolian harp ; and particularly why my pulse beat such 
a furious ratan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand, to pick out 
the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qua- 
lities, she sung sweetly ; and it was her flxvourite reel, to which I attempted 
giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to 
imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who 
had Greek and Latin ; but my girl sung a song, which was said to be com- 
posed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids, with whom 
he was in love ; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he ; 
for, excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living 
in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself. 

" Thus with me began love and poetry ; which at times have been my 
only, and till within the last twelve months, have been my highest enjoy- 
ment." 



viii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

The earliest of the poet's productions is the little ballad, 

" O once I loved a bonny lass. 

Burns himself characterises it as " a very puerile and silly performance ;" 
yet it contains here and there lines of which he need hardly have been 
ashamed at any period of his life : — 

*' She dresses aye sae clean and neat, 
Baith decent and genteel, 
And then there's something in her gait 
Gars ony dress look weel." 

" Silly and puerile as it is," said the poet, long afterwards, " I am al- 
ways pleased with this song, as it recalls to my mind those happy days 
when my heart was yet honest, and my tongue sincere...! composed it in a 
wild enthusiasm of passion, and to this hour I never recollect it but my 
heart melts, my blood sallies, at the remembrance." (MS. Memorandum 
book, August 1783.) 

In his first epistle to Lapraik (1785) he says — 

" Atnaist as soon as I could spell, 
I to the crambo-jingle fell, 

Tho' rude and rough ; 
Yet crooning to a body's sell 

Does weel eneugh." 

And in some nobler verses, entitled " On my Early Days," we have the 
following passage : — 

" I mind it weel in early date, 
When I was beardless, young and blate, 

And first could thrash the barn, 
Or baud a yokin' o' the pleugh. 
An' tho' forfoughten sair eneugh, 

Yet unco proud to learn — 
When first amang the yellow corn 

A man I reckoned was, 
An' wi' the lave ilk merry morn 

Could rank my rig and lass- 
Still shearing and clearing 

The tither stookit raw, 
W^i' claivers and haivers 

Wearing the day awa — 
E'en then a wish, I mind its power, 
A wish that to my latest hour 

shall strongly heave my breast : 
Tliat I for poor auld Scotland's sake, 
Some useful plan or book could make. 

Or sing a sang, at least : 
The rough bur-thistle spreading wide 

Amang the bearded bear, 
I turn'd the weeder-clips aside. 

And spared the symbol dear." 

He is hardly to be envied who can contemplate without emotion, this 
exquisite picture of young nature and young genius. It was amidst such 
scenes that this extraordinary being felt those first indefinite stirrings of 
immortal ambition, which he has himself shadowed out under the magnifi- 
cent image of '< the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops, around the walls 
of his cave." 



CHAPTER IL 

Contents.— Prom 17 fo 24 — Robert and Gilbert Sums work to their Father, as Labourers^ 
at stated Wages — At literal Work the J^oet feared no Competitor — This period not marked 
hy much Mental Improvement — At Dancing- School — Progress in Love and Poetry — At 
School at Kirkoswald's — Bad Company — At Irvine-^Flaxdressing — Becomes there Mem 
her of a Batchelors' Club. 



" O enviable early days, 
When dancing thou^^htless pleasure's maze, 

To care and guilt unknown ! 
How ill exchanged for riper times, 
To feel the follies or the crimes 

Of otliers — or my own !" 

As has been already mentioned, William Burnes now quitted Mount 
Oliphant for Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton, where, for some little 
space, fortune appeared to smile on his industry and frugality. Robert 
and Gilbert were employed by their father as regular labourers — he allow- 
ing them £7 of wages each per annum ; from which sum, however, the 
value of any home-made clothes received by the youths was exactly de- 
ducted. Robert Burns's person, inured to daily toil, and continually expos- 
ed to every variety of weather, presented, before the usual time, every cha- 
racteristic of robust and vigorous manhood. He says himself, that he never 
feared a competitor in any species of rural exertion ; and Gilbert Burns, 
a man of uncommon bodily strength, adds, that neither he, nor any labourer 
he ever saw at work, was equal to the youthful poet, either in the corn 
field, or the severer tasks of the thrashing-floor. Gilbert says, that Ro- 
bert's literary zeal slackened considerably after their removal to Tarbolton. 
He was separated from his acquaintances of the town of Ayr, and proba- 
bly missed not only the stimulus of their conversation, but the kindness 
that had furnished him with his supply, such as it was, of books. But the 
jonain source of his change of habits about this period was, it is confessed 
on all hands, the precocious fervour of one of his own turbulent passions. 

" In my seventeenth year," says Burns, " to give my manners a brush, I 
went to a country dancing-school. — My father had an unaccountable anti- 
pathy against these meetings ; and my going was, what to this moment I 
repent, in opposition to his wishes. My father was subject to strong pas- 
sions ; from that instance of disobedience in me, he took a sort of dislike 
to me> which I believe was one cause of the dissipation which marked my 
succeeding years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the strictness, 
and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyterian country life ; for though the 
Will-o'-Wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the sole lights of 
my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for several years 
afterwards within the line of innocence. The great misfortune of my life 
was to want an aim. I saw my father's situation entailed on me perpetual 
labour. The only two openings by which I could enter the temple of For- 

4 



X LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

tune, were the gate of nigardly economy, or the path of Httle chicaning 
bargain-making. The first is so contracted an aperture, I could never 
squeeze myself into it ; — the last I always hated — there was contamination 
in the very entrance ! Thus abandoned of aim or view in life, with a 
strong appetite for sociability, as well from native hilarity, as from a pride 
of observation and remark ; a constitutional melancholy or hypochondria- 
cisni that made me fly solitude ; add to these incentives to social life, my 
reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a 
strength of thought, something like the rudiments of good sense ; and it 
will not seem surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I vi- 
sited, or any great wonder that, always where two or three met together, 
there was I among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart, 
was un penchant pour I adorable moitie du genre humain. My heart was com- 
pletely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other ; 
and as in every other warfare in this world my fortune was various, some- 
times I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a 
repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no competitor, and 
thus I set absolute want at defiance ; and as I never cared farther for my 
labours than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings in the 
way after my own heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love adven- 
ture without an assisting confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal, and in- 
trepid dexterity, that recommended me as a proj)er second on these occa- 
sions, and I dare say, I felt as much pleasure in being in the secret of 
half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton, as ever did statesman in knowing 
the intrigues of half the courts of Europe." 

In regard to the same critical period of Burns's life, his excellent brother 
writes as follows : — " I wonder how Robert could attribute to our father that 
lasting resentment of his going to a dancing-school against his will, of which 
he was incapable. I believe the truth was, that about this time he began 
to see the dangerous impetuosity of my brother's passions, as well as his 
not being amenable to counsel, which often irritated my father, and which 
he would naturally think a dancing-school was not likely to correct. But 
he was proud of Robert's genius, which he bestowed more expense on 
cultivating than on the rest of the family — and he was equally delighted 
with his warmth of heart, and conversational powers. He had indeed that 
dislike of dancing-schools which Robert mentions ; but so far overcame it 
during Robert's first month of attendance, that he permitted the rest of 
the family that were fit for it, to accompany him during the second month. 
Robert excelled in dancing, and was for some time distractedly fond of it. 
And thus the seven years we lived in Tarbolton parish (extending from the 
seventeenth to the twenty -fourth of my brother's age) were not marked by 
much Hterary improvement ; but, during this time, the foundation was laid 
of certain habits in my brother's character, which aftenvards became but 
too prominent, and which malice and envy have taken delight to enlarge 
on. Though, when young, he was bashful and awkward in his intercourse 
with women, yet when he approached manhood, his attachment to their 
society became very strong, and he was constantly the victim of some 
fair enslaver. The symptoms of his passion were often such as nearly to 
equal those of the celebrated Sappho. I never indeed knew that he 
fairUed^ sunk, and died away ; but the agitations of his mind and body 
exceeded any thing of the kind I ever knew in real life. He had always a 
particular jealousy of people who were richer than himself, or who had 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xi 

more consequence in life. His love, therefore, rarely settled on persons 
of this description. When he selected any one out of the sovereignty of 
his good pleasure to whom he should pay his particular attention, she was 
instantly invested with a sufficient stock of charms, out of the plentiful 
stores of his own imagination ; and there was often a great dissimilitude 
between his fair captivator, as she appeared to others, and as she seemed 
when invested with the attributes he gave her. One generally reigned 
paramount in his affections ; but as Yorick's affections flowed out toward 
Madame de L — — at the remise door, while the eternal vows of Eliza were 
upon him, so Robert was frequently encountering other attractions, which 
formed so many under-plots in the drama of his love." 

Thus occupied with labour, love, and dancing, the youth *' without an 
aim" found leisure occasionally to clothe the sufficiently various moods of 
Jiis mind in rhymes. It was as early as seventeen, (he tells us),* that he 
wrote some stanzas which begin beautifully : 

*' I dream'cl I lay where flowers were springing 

Gaily in the sunny beam ; 
Listening to the wild birds singing, 

By a fallen crystal stream. 
Straight the sky grew black and daring, 

Thro' the woods the whirlwinds rave, 
Trees with aged arms were warring, 

O'er the swelling drumlie wave. 
Such was life's deceitful morning," &c. 

On comparing these verses with those on " Handsome Nell," the ad- 
vance achieved by the young bard in the course of two short years, must 
be regarded with admiration ; nor should a minor circumstance be entirely 
overlooked, that in the piece which we have just been quoting, there occurs 
but one Scotch word. It was about this time, also, that he wrote a ballad of 
much less ambitious vein, which, years after, he says, he used to con over 
with deUght, because of the faithfulness with which it recalled to him the 
circumstances and feelings of his opening manhood. 

— " My father was a faimqr upon the Carrick Border, 
And carefully he brought me up in decency and order. 
And bade me act a manly part, tho' I had ne'er a farthing ; 
For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding. 

Then out into the world my course I did determine ; 
Tho'' to be rich teas not my tvish, yet to be great was charming ; 
My talents they were not the tcorst., nor yet my education ; 
Resolved was I at least to try to mend my situation. 



No help, nor hope, nor view had I, nor person to befriend me ; 
. So I must toil, and sweat, and broU, and labour to sustain me. 

To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred me early ; 
For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for fortune fairly. 

Thus all obscure, unknown and poor, thro' life I'm doomed to wander; 
Till down my weary bones 1 lay, in everlasting slumber. 
No view, nor care, but shun whate'er might breed me pain or sorrow ; 
I live to-day, as well's I may, regardless of to-morrow," &c. 

These are the only two of his very early productions in which we have 
nothing expressly about love. The rest were composed to celebrate the 
charms of those rural beauties who followed each other in the dominion of 

* Reljques, p. 242, 



xii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

his fancy — or shared the capricious throne between them ; and we may 
easily believe, that one who possessed, with his other qualifications, such 
powers of flattering, feared competitors as little in the diversions of his 
evenings as in the toils of his day. 

The rural lover, in those districts, pursues his tender vocation in a style, 
the especial fascination of which town-bred swains may find it some- 
what difficult to comprehend. After the labours of the day are over, nay, 
very often after he is supposed by the inmates of his own fireside to be in 
his bed, the happy youth thinks little of walking many long Scotch miles 
to the residence of his mistress, who, upon the signal of a tap at her win- 
dow, comes forth to spend a soft hour or two beneath the harvest moon, 
or, if the weather be severe, (a circumstance which never prevents the 
journey from being accomplished), amidst the sheaves of her father's barn. 
This " chappin' out," as they call it, is a custom of which parents com- 
monly wink at, if they do not openly approve, the observance ; and the 
consequences are far, very far, more frequently quite harmless, than per- 
sons not familiar with the peculiar manners and feelings of our peasantry 
may find it easy to believe. Excursions of this class form the theme of 
almost all the songs which Burns is known to have produced about this pe- 
riod, — and such of these juvenile performances as have been preserved, 
are, without exception, beautiful. They show how powerfully his boyish 
fancy had been affected by the old rural minstrelsy of his own country, 
and how easily his native taste caught the secret of its charm. The truth 
and simplicity of nature breathe in every line— the images are always just, 
often originally happy — and the growing refinement of his ear and judg- 
ment, may be traced in the terser language and more mellow flow of each 
successive ballad. 

The best of the songs written at this time is that begmning,— ^ 

" It was upon a Lammas night, 
When corn rigs are bonnie, 
Beneath the moon's unclouded light, 

I held awa to Annie. 
The time flew by wi' tentless heed, 

Till, 'tween the late and early, 
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed 
To see me thro' the barley." 

We may let the poet carry on his own story. " A circumstance," says 
he, " which made some alteration on my mind and manners, was, that I 
spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good distance from 
home, at a noted school (Kirkoswald's) to learn mensuration, surveying, 
dialling, &c., in which I made a good progress. But I made a greater pro- 
gress in the knowledge of mankind. The contraband trade was at that 
time very successful, and it sometimes happened to me to fall in with those 
who carried it on. Scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were 
till this time new to me ; but I was no enemy to social life. Here, though 
I learnt to fill my glass, and to mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet 
I went on v/ith a high hand Avith my geometry, till the sun entered Virgo, 
a month which is always a carnival in my bosom, when a charming jilette, 
who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me 
off at a tangent from the sphere of my studies. I, however, struggled on 
with my sines and cosines for a few days more ; but stepping into the gar- 
den one charming noon to take the sun's altitude, there I met my angel, 
like— 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xiii 

" Proserpine, feathering flowers, 
Herself a fairer flower." 

" It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The remain- 
ing week I staid, I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about 
her, or steal out to meet her ; and the two last nights of my stay in the 
country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this modest and inno- 
cent girl had kept me guiltless. I returned home very considerably improved. 
My reading was enlarged with the very important addition of Thomson's 
and Shenstone's Works ; I had seen human nature in a new phasis ; and I 
engaged several of my school -fellows to keep up a literary correspondence 
with me. This improved me in composition. I had met with a collection 
of letters by the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored over them most 
devoutly ; I kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me ; and a 
comparison between them and the composition of most of my correspon- 
dents flattered my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that though I had 
not three farthings worth of business in the world, yet almost every post 
brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of day- 
book and ledger. My life flowed on much in the same course till my 
twenty-third year. Vive Vamour, et vive la bagatelle^ were my sole princi- 
ples of action. The addition of two more authors to my library gave me 
great pleasure; Sterne and Mackenzie — Tristram Shandy ?ind. The Man 
of Feeling — were my bosom flivourites. Poesy was still a darling walk for 
my mind ; but it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour. 
I had usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand ; I took up one or other, 
as it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as 
it bordered on fatigue. My passions, once lighted up, raged like so many 
devils, till they found vent in rhyme ; and then the conning over my verses, 
like a spell, soothed all into quiet." 

Of the rhymes of those days, ^ev^^, when" he wrote his letter to Moore, had 
appeared in print. Winter, a dirge, an admirably versified piece, is of their 
number ; The Death of Poor Mailie, Mailie's Elegy, and John Barleycornj 
and one charming song, inspired by the Nymph of Kirkoswald's, whose at- 
tractions put an end to his trigonometry. 

" Now westlin winds, and slaughtering guns, 

Bring Autumn's pleasant weather ; 
The moorcock springs, on whirring wings, 

Amang* the blooming heather. . . . 
— Peggy dear, the evening's clear. 

Thick flies the skimming swallow ; 
The sky is bkie, the fields in view, 

AU fading green and yellow ; 
Come let us stray our gladsome way," &c. 

John Barleycorn is a clever old ballad, very cleverly new-modelled and 
extended ; but the Death and Elegy of Poor Mailie deserve more atten- 
tion. The expiring animal's admonitions touching the education of the 
" poor toop lamb, her son and heir," and the " yowie, silly thing," her 
daughter, are from the same peculiar vein of sly homely wit, embedded 
upon fancy, which he afterwards dug with a bolder hand in the Twa Dogs, 
and perhaps to its utmost depth, in his DeatJi and Doctor Hornbook. It 
need scarcely be added, that Poor Mailie was a real personage, though she 
did not actually die until some time after her last words were written. She 
had been purchased by Burns in a frolic, and became exceedingly attached 
to his person. 



xiv I'IFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

*' Thro' all the town she trotted by him ; 
A lang half-mile she could descry him ; 
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, 

She ran Avi' speed : 
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er came nigh him, 

Than Mailie dead." 

These little pieces are in a much broader dialect than any of their pre- 
decessors. His merriment and satire were, from the beginning, Scotch. 
Notwithstanding the luxurious tone of some of Burns's pieces produced in 
those times, we are assured by himself (and his brother unhesitatingly con- 
firms the statement) that no positive vice mingled in any of his loves, until 
after he had reached his twenty-third year. He has already told us, that 
his short residence " away from home" at Kirkoswald's, where he mixed 
in the society of seafaring men and smugglers, produced an unfavourable 
alteration on some of his habits; but in 1781-2 he spent six months at 
Irvine ; and it is from this period that his brother dates a serious change. 

" As his numerous connexions," says Gilbert, " were governed by the 
strictest rules of virtue and modesty, (from which he never deviated till 
his twenty-third year), he became anxious to be in a situation to marry. 
This was not likely to be the case while he remained a farmer, as the stock- 
ing of a farm required a sum of money he saw no probability of being mas- 
ter of for a great while. He and I had for several years taken land of our 
father, for the purpose of raising flax on our own account ; and in the 
course of selling it, Robert began to think of turning flax-dresser, both as 
being suitable to his grand view of settling in life, and as subservient to 
the flax-raising." Burns, accordingly, went to a half-brother of his mo- 
ther's, by name Peacock, a flax-dresser in Irvine, with the view of learn- 
ing this new trade, and for some time he applied himself diligently ; but 
misfortune after misfortune attended him. The shop accidentally caught 
fire during the carousal of a new-year's-day's morning, and Robert " was 
left, like a true poet, not worth a sixpence." — " I was obliged," says he, 
" to give up this scheme ; the clouds of misfortune were gathering thick 
round my father's head ; and what was worst of all, he was visibly far gone 
in a consumption ; and, to crown my distresses, a belle Jille whom I adored, 
and who had pledged her soul to meet me in the field of matrimony, jilted 
me, with peculiar circumstances of mortification. The finishing evil that 
brought up the rear of this infernal file, was, my constitutional melancholy 
being increased to such a degree, that for three rnonths 1 was in a state 
of mind scarcely to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have got 
their mittimus — Depart from me, ye cursed" The following letter, addressed 
by Burns to his father, three days before the unfortunate fire took place, 
will show abundantly that the gloom of his spirits had little need of that 
aggravation. When we consider by whom, to whom, and under what cir- 
cumstances, it was written, the letter is every way a remarkable one : — ^ 

"Honoured Sir, 
" I HAVE purposely delayed writing, in the hope that I should have 
the pleasure of seeing you on New-year's day ; but work comes so hard 
upon us, that I do not choose to be absent on that account, as well as for 
some other little reasons, which I shall tell you at meeting. My health is 
nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little sounder; 
and, on the whole, I am rather better than otherwise, though I mend by 
very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so debilitated my 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xv 

mind, that I dare neither review past wants, nor look forward into futurity ; 
for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast produces most unhappy 
effects on my whole frame. Sometimes, indeed, when for an hour or two 
my spirits are alightened, I glimmer a little into futurity ; but my principal, 
and indeed my only pleasurable employment, is looking backwards and for- 
wards in a moral and religious way. I am quite trans})orted at the thought, 
that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the 
pains and uneasiness, and disquietudes of this weary life ; for I assure you 
I am heartily tired of it ; and, if I do not very much deceive myself', I 
could contentedly and gladly resign it. 

' The soul, uneasy, and confined at home, 
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.' 

" It is for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th 
verses of the 7th chapter of Revelations, than with any ten times as many 
verses in "the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm 
with which they inspire me for all that this world has to offer. As for this 
world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not formed for the 
bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. 1 shall never again be cap- 
able of entering into such scenes. Indeed, I am altogether unconcerned 
at the thoughts of this Ufe. I foresee that poverty and obscurity probably 
await me, and I am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing, to meet 
them. I have but just time and paper to return you my grateful thanks 
for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me, which were too much 
neglected at the time of giving them, but which I hope have been remem- 
bered ere it is yet too late. Present my dutiful respects to my motlier, 
and my compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Muir; and, with wishing you a 
merry New-year's -day, I shall conclude. 

" I am, honoured Sir, your dutiful son, ' 

" Robert Burns." 

" P. S. — My meal is nearly out ; but I am going to borrow, till I get 
more." 

The verses of Scripture here alluded to, are as follows : — 

" 15. Therefore are the}' before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his tem- 
ple ; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. \ 

" 16. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall the sun light on 
them, nor any heat. 

" 17. For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead thera 
unto living fountains of waters ; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." 

" This letter," says Dr. Currie, " written several years before the publi- 
cation of his Poems, when his name was as obscure as his condition was 
humble, displays the philosophic melancholy which so generally forms the 
poetical temperament, and that buoyant and ambitious spirit which indi- 
cates a mind conscious of its strength. At Irvine, Bums at this time pos- 
sessed a single room for his lodgings, rented, perhaps, at the rate of a shil- 
ling a-week. He passed his days in constant labour as a flax-dresser, and 
his food consisted chiefly of oat-meal, sent to him from his father's family. 
The store of this humble, though wholesome nutriment, it appears, was 
nearly exhausted, and he was about to borrow till he should obtain a sup- 
ply. Yet even in this situation, his active imagination had formed to itself 
pictures of eminence and distinction. His despair of making a figure in 



xvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

the world, shows how ardently he wished for honourable fame ; and his 
contempt of life, founded on this despair, is the genuine expression of a 
youthful and generous mind. In such a state of reflection, and of suffering, 
the imagination of Burns naturally passed the dark boundaries of our earthly 
horizon, and rested on those beautiful representations of a better world, 
where there is neither thirst, nor hunger, nor sorrow, and where happiness 
shall be in proportion to the capacity of happiness." — Life^ p. 102. 

Unhappily for himself and for the world, it was not always in the recol- 
lections of his virtuous home and the study of his Bible, that Burns sought 
for consolation amidst the heavy distresses which " his youth was heir to.'* 
Irvine is a small sea-port ; and here, as at Kirkoswald's, the adventurous 
spirits of a smuggling coast, with all their jovial habits, were to be met 
with in abundance. " He contracted some acquaintance," says Gilbert, 
" of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been used to, whose 
society prepared him for overleaping the bounds of rigid virtue, which had 
hitherto restrained him." 

One of the most intimate companions of Burns, while he remained at 
Irvine, seems to have been David Sillar, to whom the Epistle to Da- 
viCf a Brother Poet, was subsequently addressed. Sillar was at this time a 
poor schoolmaster in Irvine, enjoying considerable reputation as a writer 
of local verses : and, according to all accounts, extremely jovial in his life 
and conversation. 

Burns himself thus sums up the results of his residence at Irvine : — • 
" From this adventure I learned something of a town life ; but the princi- 
pal thing which gave my mind a turn, was a friendship I formed with a 
young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of misfortune, tie 
was the son of a simple mechanic ; but a great man in the neighbourhood, 
taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel education, with a view 
of bettering his situation in life. The patron dying just as he was ready to 
launch out into the world, the poor fellow in despair went to sea ; where, 
after a variety of good and ill fortune, a little before I was acquainted with 
him, he had been set ashore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of 

Connaught, stripped of every thing His mind was fraught with 

independence, magnanimity, and every manly virtue. I loved and admir- 
ed him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of course strove to imitate him. In 
some measure I succeeded ; I had pride before, but he taught it to flow in 
proper channels. His knowledge of the world was vastly superior to mine ; 
and I was all attention to learn. He was the only man 1 ever saw who was 
a greater fool than myself, where women was the presiding star ; but he 
spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor — which hitherto I had regard- 
ed with horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief." Professor Walker, 
when preparing to write his Sketch of the Poet's life, was informed by an 
aged inhabitant of Irvine, that Burns's chief delight while there was in dis- 
cussing religious topics, particularly in those circles which usually gather 
in a Scotch churchyard after service. The senior added, that Bums com- 
monly took the high Calvinistic side in such debates ; and concluded with 
a boast, that " the lad" was indebted to himself in a great measure for 
the gradual adoption of " more liberiil opinions." It was during the same 
period, that the poet was first initiated in the mysteries of free masonry, 
" which was," says his brother, " his first introduction to the life of a boon 
companion." He waa introduced to St. Mary's Lodge of Tarbolton by 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xvii 

John Ranken, a very dissipated man of considerable talents, to whom he 
afterwards indited a poetical epistle, which will be noticed in its place. 

" Rhyme," Burns says, " I had given up ;" (on going to Irvine) " but 
meeting with Ferguson's Scottish Poems, I strung anew my wildly sound- 
ing lyre with emulating vigour." Neither flax-dressing nor the tavern 
could keep him long from his proper vocation. But it was probably this 
accidental meeting with Ferguson, that in a great measure finally deter- 
mined the Scottish character of Burns's poetry ; and indeed, but for the 
lasting sense of this obligation, and some natural sympathy with the pergonal 
misfortunes of Ferguson's life, it would be difficult to account for the very 
high terms in which Burns always mentions his productions. 

Shortly before Burns went to Irvine, he, his brother Gilbert, and some 
seven or eight young men besides, all of the parish of Tarbolton, had form- 
ed themselves into a society, which they called the Bachelor's Club ; and 
which met one evening in every month for the purposes of mutual enter- 
tainment and improvement. That their cups were but modestly filled is 
evident ; for the rules of the club did not permit any member to spend 
more than threepence at a sitting. A question was announced for dis- 
cussion at the close of each meeting ; and at the next they came prepared 
to deliver their sentiments upon the subject-matter thus proposed. Burns 
drew up the regulations, and evidently was the principal person. He in- 
troduced his friend Sillar during liis stay at Irvine, and the meetings ap- 
pear to have continued as long as the family remained in Tarbolton. Of 
the sort of questions discussed, we may form some notion from the minute 
of one evening, still extant in Burns's hand-writing. — Question for Hal- 
xowEEN, (Nov. 11), 1780.—" Suppose a young man, bred a farmer, hut 
without any fortune, has it in his power to marry either of two women, the one 
a girl of large fortune, hut neither handsome in person, nor agreeable in con- 
versation, hut who can manage iJie household affairs of a farm well enovgh ; 
the other oftliem a girl every way agreeahle in person, conversation, and heJiavi- 
our, hut without any fortune : which of them shall he choose ?" Burns, as 
may be guessed, took the imprudent side in this discussion. 

" On one solitary occasion," says he, " we resolved to meet at Tarbol- 
ton in July, on the race-night, and have a dance in honour of our society. 
Accordingly, we did meet, each one with a partner, and spent the evening 
in such innocence and merriment, such cheerfulness and good humour, that 
every brother will long remember it with delight," There can be no doubt 
that Burns would not have patronized this sobel* association so long, unless 
he had experienced at its assemblies the pleasure of a stimulated mind ; 
and as little, that to the habit of arranging his thoughts, and expressing 
them in somewhat of a formal shape, thus early cultivated, we ought to at- 
tribute much of that conversational skill which, when he first mingled with 
the upper world, was generally considered as the most remarkable of all his 
personal accomplishments — Burns's associates of the Bachelor's Club, 
must have been young men possessed of talents and acquirements, other- 
wise such minds as his and Gilbert's could not have persisted in measuring 
themselves against theirs ; and we may believe that the periodical display 
of the poet's own vigour and resources, at these club-mcetlngs, and (more 
frequently than his brother approved) at the FVee Mason Lodges of Irvine 
and Tarbolton, extended his rural re})utation ; and, by degrees, prepared 
persons not inmiediately included in his own ch'cle, ibr the extraordinary 
impression which his poetical efforts were ere long to create all over " the 
Carrick border." 

5 



xviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

David Sillcvr gives an account of the beginning of his own acquaintance 
with Burns, and introduction intothis Bachelor's Club, which will always be 

read with much interest " Mr. Robert Burns was some time in the parish 

of Tarbolton prior to my acquaintance with him. His social disposition 
easily procured him acquaintance ; but a certain satirical seasoning with 
which he and all poetical geniuses are in some degree influenced, while it 
set the rustic circle in a roar, was not unaccompanied with its kindred at- 
tendant, suspicious fear. I recollect hearing his neighbours observe, he had 
a great deal to say for himself, and that they suspected his principles. He 
wore the only tied hair in the parish ; and in the church, his plaid, which 
was of a particular colour, I think fillemot, he wrapped in a particular 
manner round his shoulders. These surmises, and his exterior, had such 
a magnetical influence on my curiosity, as made me particularly solicitous 
of his acquaintance. Whether my acquaintance with Gilbert was casual 
or premeditated, I am not now certain. By him I was introduced, not 
only to his brother, but to the whole of that family, where, in a short time, 
I became a frequent, and I believe, not unwelcome visitant. .After the 
commencement of my acquaintance with the bard, we frequently met 
upon Sundays at church, when, between sermons, instead of going with 
our friends or lasses to the inn, we often took a walk in the fields. In these 
walks, I have frequently been struck with his facility in addressing the fair 
sex ; and many times, when I have been bashfully anxious how to express 
myself, he would have entered into conversation with them with the great- 
est ease and freedom ; and it was generally a death-blow to our conversa- 
tion, however agreeable, to meet a female acquaintance. Some of the few 
opportunities of a noontide walk that a country life allows her laborious 
sons, he spent on the banks of the river, or in the woods, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Stair, a situation peculiarly adapted to the genius of a rural 
bard. Some book (generally one of those mentioned in his letter to Mr. 
Murdoch) he always carried and read, when not otherwise employed. It 
was likewise his custom to read at table. In one of my visits to Lochlea, 
in time of a sowen supper, he was so intent on reading, I think Tristram 
Shandy, that his spoon falling out of his hand, made him exclaim, in a 
tone scarcely imitable, * Alas, poor Yorick !' Such was Burns, and such 
were his associates, when, in May 1781, I was admitted a member of 
the Bachelor's Club." 

The misfortunes of William Burnes thickened apace, as has already been 
seen, and were approaching their crisis at the time when Robert came 
home from his flax-dressing experiment at Irvine. The good old man 
died soon after ; and among other evils which he thus escaped, was an af- 
fliction that would, in his eyes, have been severe. The poet had not, as 
he confesses, come vmscathed out of the society of those persons of " li- 
beral opinions" with whom he consorted in Irvine ; and he expressly 
attributes to their lessons, the scrape into which he fell soon after " he 
put his hand to plough again." He was compelled, according to the then 
aU but universal custom of rural parishes in Scotland, to do penance in 
church, before the congregation, in consequence of the birth of an illegi- 
timate child ; and whatever may be thought of the propriety of such ex- 
hibitions, there can be no difference of opinion as to the culpable levity 
with which he describes the nature of his offence, and the still more re- 
prehensible bitterness with which, in his Epistle to Ranken, he inveighs 
against the clergyman, who, in rebuking him, only performed what was 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xix 

then a regular part of tlie clerical duty, and a part of it that could never 
have been at all agreeable to the worthy man whom he satirizes under 
the appellation of " Daddie Auld." The Poet's Welcotne to an Illegitimate 
Child was composed on the same occasion — a piece in which some very 
manly feelings are expressed, along with others which can give no one 
pleasure to contemplate. There is a soii^ in honour of the same occasion, 
or a similar one about the same period, The rantiii Dog the Daddie ot, — 
which exhibits the poet as glorying, and only glorying in his shame. 

When I consider his tender affection for the surviving members of his 
own family, and the reverence with which lie ever regarded the memory of 
the father whom he had so recently buried, I cannot believe that Burns has 
thought fit to record in verse all the feelings which this exposure excited 
in his bosom. " To wave (in his own language) the quantum of the sin," 
he who, two years afterwards, wrote The Cottars Saturday Nighty had not, 
we may be sure, hardened his heart to the thought of bringing rdditional 
sorrow and unexpected shame to the fireside of a v>'idowed mother. But 
his false pride recoiled from letting his jovial associates guess how little he 
was able to drown the whispers of the still small voice ; and the fermenting 
bitterness of a mind ill at ease within itself, escaped (as may be too often 
traced in the history of satirists) in the shape of angry, sarcasms against 
others, who, whatever their private errors might be, had at least done him 
no wrong. 

It is impossible not to smile at one item of consolation which Burns pro- 
poses to himself on this occasion ;— 

« -.— « The mair they talk, Vm kend ihc hciter : 
E'en let them clash J" 

This is indeed a singular manifestation of *< the last infirmity of noble 
minds." 



CHAPTER III. 



CoKTENTS.— 77»e Brothers, Rohert arid Gilbert, become tenants of Mossgiel — Tlieir incessant 
labour and moderate habits — The farm cold ajtd unfertile — Nut prosperous — The Muse 
anti-calvinistical — The poet thence involved deeply in local polemics, and charged with he- 
resy — Curious account of these disputes — Early poems prompted by them. — Origin of and 
remarks upon the poet's principal pieces — Love leads him far astray — A crisis — The jail or 
the West Indies — The alternative. 



" The star that rules my hickless lot 
Has fated me the russet coat. 
And damn'd my fortune to the groat ; 

But in requit. 
Has blessed me wi' a random shot 

O' country wit." 

Three months before the death of William Burnes, Robert and Gilbert 
took the farm of Mossgiel, in the neighbouring parish of Mauchline, with 
the view of providing a shelter for their parents, in the storm which they 
had seen gi*adually thickening, and knew must soon burst ; and to this 
place the whole family removed on William's death. The farm consisted 
of 119 acres, and the rent was £90. " It was stocked by the property 
and individual savings of the whole family, (says Gilbert), and was a joint 
concern among us. Every member of the family was allowed ordinary 
wages for the labour he performed on the farm. My brother's allowance 
and mine was £l per annum each ; and during the whole time this family 
concern lasted, which was four years, as well as during the preceding pe- 
riod at Lochlea, Robert's expenses never, in any one year, exceeded his 
slender income." 

" I entered on this farm," says the poet, " with a full resolution, come, 
gOy I will be ivise. I read farming books, I calculated crops, I attended 
markets ; and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the Jlesh, 
I believe I should have been a wise man ; but the first year, from unfor- 
tunately buying bad seed, the second, from a late harvest, we lost half 
our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, like the dog to his 
vomit, and the sow that was icashed to her wallowing in the mire." 

" At the time that our poet .took the resolution of becoming wise, he 
procured," says Gilbert, " a little book of blank paper, with the purpose, 
expressed on the first page, of making farming memorandums. These 
farming memoramlums are curious enough," Gilbert slyly adds, " and a 
specimen may gratify the reader." — Specimens accordingly he gives ; as, 

" O why the deuce should I repine, 
And be an ill forcboder ? 
I'm twenty-three, and five foot nine,— 
I'll go and be a sodger," &c. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xxi 

" O leave novclls, ye Mauchlinc belles, 

Yc're safer at your spinning wheel ; 
Such witching books are baited liooks 

For rakish rooks — like Rob Mossgiel. 
Your fine Tom Jones and Granilisons, 

They make your youthful fancies reel. 
They heat your veins, and fire your hming,' 

And then ye're prey for Rob Mossgiel," &c. &c. 

The four years during which Burns resided on this cold and ungrateful 
farm of Mossgiel, were the most important of his life. It was then that 
his genius developed its highest energies ; on the works produced in these 
years his fame was first estabhshed, and must ever continue mainly to rest: 
it was then also that his personal character came out in all its brightest lights, 
and in all but its darkest shadows ; and indeed from the commencement 
of this period, the history of the man may be traced, step by step, in his 
own immortal writings. Burns now began to know that nature had meant 
him for a poet ; and diligently, though as yet in secret, he laboured in 
what he felt to be his destined vocation. Gilbert continued for some time 
to be his chief, often indeed his only confidant ; and any thing more inte- 
resting and delightful than this excellent man's account of the manner in 
which the poems included in the first of his brother's publications were 
composed, is certainly not to be found in the annals of literary history. 

The reader has already seen, that long before the earliest of them was 
known beyond the domestic circle, the strength of Burns's understanding, 
and the keenness of his wit, as displayed in his ordinary conversation, and 
more particularly at masonic meetings and debating clubs, (of which he 
formed one in JNIauchline, on the Tarbolton model, immediately on his re- 
moval to Mossgiel), had made his name known to some considerable extent 
in the country about Tarbolton, Mauchline, and Irvine ; and this prepared 
the way for his poetry. Professor Walker gives an anecdote on this head, 
which must not be omitted. Burns already numbered several clergymen 
among his acquaintances. One of these gentlemen told the Professor, that 
after entering on the clerical profession, he had repeatedly met Burns in 
company, " where," said he, " the acuteness and originality displayed by 
him, the depth of his discernment, the force of his expressions, and the 
authoritative energy of his understanding, had created a sense of his 
power of the extent of which I was unconscious, till it was revealed to 
me by accident. On the occasion of my second appearance in the pulpit, 
I came with an assured and tranquil mind, and though a few persons of 
education were present, advanced some length in the service with my con- 
fidence and self-possession unimpaired ; but when I saw Burns, who was 
of a different parish, unexpectedly enter the church, I was affected with 
a tremor and embarrassment, which suddenly apprised me of the impression 
which my mind, unknown to itself, had previously received." The Pro- 
fessor adds, that the person who had thus unconsciously been measuring 
the stature of the intellectual giant, was not only a man of good talents 
and education, but '• remarkable for a more than ordinary portion of con - 
stitutional firmness." 

Every Scotch peasant who makes any pretension to understanding, is a 
theological critic — and Burns, no doubt, had long ere this time distinguish- 
ed himself considerably among those hard-headed groups that may usually 
be seen gathered together in the church-yard after the sermon is over. It 
may be guessed that from the time of his residence at Irvine, his stric- 



xxii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

tares were too often delivered in no reverend vein. " Polemical divinity,* 
says he to Dr. Moore, in 1787, « about tliis time, was putting the coun- 
try half mad, and I, ambitious of shining in conversation-parties on Sun- 
days, at funerals, &c., used to puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and in- 
discretion, that I raised a hue-and-cry of heresy against me, which has not 
ceased to this hour." 

To understand Burns's situation at this time, at once patronized by a 
number of clergymen, and attended with « a liue-and-cry of heresy," we 
must remember liis own words, « that polemical divinity was putting the 
country half mad." Of both the two parties which, ever since the revolu- 
tion of 1688, have pretty equally divided the Church of Scotland, it so 
happened that some of the most zealous and conspicuous leaders and par- 
tizans were thus opposed to each other, in constant warfln*?, in this parti- 
cular district ; and their feuds being of course taken up among their con- 
gregations, and spleen and prejudice at work, even more furiously in the 
cottage than in tJie inanse, he who, to the annoyance of the one set of belli- 
gerents, could talk like Burns, might count pretty surely, with whatever 
alloy his wit Iiappened to be mingled, on the applause and countenance of 
the enemy. And it is needless to add, they were the less scrupulous sect 
of the two that enjoyed the co-operation, such as it was then, and far more 
important, as in the sequel it came to be, of our poet. 

William Burnes, as we have already seen, though a most exemplary and 
devout man, entertained opinions very different from those which common- 
ly obtained among the rigid Calvanists of his district. The worthy and 
pious old man himself, therefore, had not improbably infused into his son's 
mind its first prejudice against these persons. The jovial spirits with whom 
Burns associated at Irvme, and afterwards, were of course habitual deriders 
of the manners, as well as the tenets of the 

" Orthodox, orthodox, wha believe in John Knox." 

We have already observed the effect of the young poet's own first collision 
with the ruling powers of presbyterian discipline ; but it was in the very 
act of settling at Mossgiel that Burns formed the connexion, which, more 
than any circumstance besides, influenced him as to the matter now in 
question. The farm belonged to the estate of the Earl of Loudoun, but 
the brothers held it on a sub-lease from Mr. Gavin Hamilton, writer (i. e. 
attorney) in Mauchline, a man, by every account, of engaging manners, 
open, kind, generous, and high-spirited, between whom and Robert Burns, 
a close and intimate friendship was ere long formed. Just about this time 
it Iiappened that Hamilton was at open feud with Mr. Auld, the minister 
of Mauchline, (the same who had already rebuked the poet), and the ruling 
ciders of the parish, in consequence of certain irregularities in his personal 
conduct and deportment, which, according to the usual strict notions of 
kirk discipline, were considered as fairly demanding the vigorous interfer- 
ence of these authorities. The notice of this person, his own landlord, and, 
as it would seem, one of the principal inhabitants of the village of Mauch- 
line at the time, must, of course, liave been very flattering to our polemical 
young farmer. He espoused Gavin Hamilton's quarrel warmly. Hamilton 
was naturally enough disposed to mix up his personal affair with the stand- 
ing controversies whereon Auld was at variance with a large and powerful 
body of his brother clergymen ; and by degrees Mr. Hamilton's ardent^^ro- 
tegeciimc to be as vehemently interested in the church politics of Ayrshire, 



LIFE OF ROBERT BUJINS. xxiii 

as he could have been in politics of another order, had he happened to be 
a freeman of some open borough, and his patron a candidate for the honour 
of representing it in St. Stephen's. Mr. Cromek has been severely criti- 
cised for some details of Mr. Gavin Hamilton's dissensions with his parish 
minister ; but perhaps it might have been well to limit the censure to the 
tone and spirit of the narrative, since there is no doubt that these petty 
squabbles had a large share in directing the early energies of Burns's po- 
etical talents. Even in the west of Scotland, such matters would hardly 
excite much notice now-a-days, but they were quite enough to produce a 
world of vexation and controversy forty years ago ; and the English reader to 
whom all such details are denied, will certainly never be able to compre- 
hend either the merits or the demerits of many of Burns's most remarkable 
productions. Since I have touched on this matter at all, I may as well 
add, that Hamilton's family, though professedly adhering to the Presbyte- 
rian Establishment,^ had always lain under a strong suspicion of Episcopa- 
lianism. Gavin's grandfather had been curate of Kirkoswald in the troubl- 
ed times that preceded the Revolution, and incurred great and lasting po- 
pular hatred, V in consequence of being supposed to have had a principal 
hand in bringing a thousand of the Highland host into that region in 1677-S. 
The district was commonly said not to have entirely recovered the effects 
of that savage visitation in less than a hundred years ; and the descendants 
and representatives of the Covenanters, whom the curate of Kirkoswald 
had the reputation at least of persecuting, were commonly supposed to re- 
gard with any thing rather than ready good-will, his grandson, the witty 
writer of Mauchline. A well-nursed prejudice of this kind was likely 
enough to be met by counter-spleen, and such seems to have been the truth 
of the case. The lapse of another generation has sufficed to wipe out every 
trace of feuds, that were still abundantly discernible, in the days when 
Ayrshire first began to ring with the equally zealous applause and vituper- 
ation of, — 

" Poet Burns, 
And his priest-skelping turns." 

It is impossible to look back now to the civil war, which then raged 
among the churchmen of the west of Scotland, without confessing, that on 
either side there was much to regret, and not a little to blame. Proud 
and haughty spirits were unfortunately opposed to each other ; and in the 
superabundant display of zeal as to doctrinal points, neither party seems 
to have mingled much of the charity of the Christian temper. The whole 
exhibition was unlovely — the spectacle of such indecent violence among 
the leading Ecclesiastics of the district, acted most unfavourably on many 
men's minds — and no one can doubt that in the unsettled state of Robert 
Burns's principles, the effect must have been powerful as to him. 

Macgill and Dalrymple, the two ministers of the tov.ai of Ayr, had long 
been suspected of entertaining heterodox opinions on several points, par- 
ticularly the doctrine of original sin, and even of the Trinity ; and the for- 
mer at length published an Essay, which was considered as demanding 
the notice of the Church-courts. M'ore than a year was spent m the dis- 
cussions which arose out of this ; and at last Dr. Macgill was fain to ac- 
knowledge his errors, and promise that he would take an early opportunity 
of apologizing for ihem to his own congregation from the puli)it — which 
promise, however, he never performed. The gentry of the country took, 



xxiv LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

for the most part, the side of Macglll, who was a man of cold unpopular 
manners, but of unreproached moral character, and possessed of some ac- 
complishments, though certainly not of distinguished talents. The bulk 
of the lower orders espoused, with far more fervid zeal, the cause of those 
who conducted the prosecution against this erring doctor. Gavin Hamil- 
ton, and all persons of his stamp, were of course on the side of Macgill — 
Auld, and the Mauchline elders, were his enemies. Mr. Robert Aiken, a 
writer in Ayr, a man of remarkable talents, particularly in public speaking, 
had the principal management of Macgill's cause before the Presbytery, 
and, I believe, also before the Synod. He was an intimate friend of Ha- 
milton, and through him had about this time formed an acquaintance, which 
soon ripened into a warm friendship, with Burns. Burns, therefore, was 
from, the beginning a zealous, as in the end he was perhaps the most effective 
partizan, of the side on which Aiken had staked so much of his reputation. 
Macgill, Dalrymple, and their brethren, suspected, with more or less jus- 
tice, of leaning to heterodox opinions, are the Neiu Light pastors of his 
earliest satires. The prominent antagonists of these men, and chosen cham- 
pions of the Auld Light, in Ayrshire, it must now be admitted on all hands, 
presented, in many particulars of personal conduct and demeanour, as broad 
a mark as ever tempted the shafts of a satirist. These men prided them- 
selves on being the legitimate and undegenerate descendants and repre- 
sentatives of the haughty Puritans, who chiefly conducted the overthrow 
of Popery in Scotland, and who ruled for a time, and would fain have con- 
tinued to rule, over both king and people, with a more tyrannical dominion 
than ever the Catholic priesthood itself had been able to exercise amidst 
that high-spirited nation. With the horrors of the Papal system for ever 
in their mouths, these men were in fact as bigoted monks, and alTnost as 
relentless inquisitors in their hearts, as ever wore cowl and cord — austere 
and ungracious of aspect, coarse and repulsive of address and manners- 
very Pharisees as to the lesser matters of the law, and many of them, to all 
outward appearance at least, overflowing with pharisaical self-conceit, as 
well as monastic bile. That admirable qualities lay concealed under this 
ungainly exterior, and mingled with and checked the worst of these gloomy 
passions, no candid man will permit himself to doubt or suspect for a mo- 
ment ; and that Burns has grossly overcharged his portraits of them, dee{>- 
ening shadows that were of themselves sufficiently dark, and excluding al- 
together those brighter, and perhaps softer, traits of character, which re- 
deemed the originals within the sympathies of many of the worthiest and 
best of men, seems equally clear. Their bitterest enemies dared not at 
least to bring against them, even when the feud was at its height of fervour, 
charges of that heinous sort, which they fearlessly, and I fear justly, pre- 
ferred against their antagonists. No one ever accused them of signing the 
Articles, administering the sacraments, and eating the bread of a Church, 
whose fundamental doctrines they disbelieved, and, by insinuation at least, 
disavowed. 

The law of Church-patronage was another subject on which controversy 
ran high and furious in the district at the same period ; the actual condi- 
tion of things on this head being upheld by all the men of the New Light, 
and condenmed as equally at variance with the precepts of the gospel, tmd 
the rights of freemen, by not a i^Qw of the other party, and, in particular, 
by certain conspicuous zealots in the innnediate neighbourhood of Burns. 
While this waifare raged, there broke out an intestine discord within the 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xxv 

camp of the taction vvhicli he loved not. Two of the foremost leaders of 
the Auld Liglit l)arty (juarrelled about a (juestion of parish-boundaries ; 
the matter was taken up in the Presbytery of Kilmarnock, and there, in 
the open court, to which the annomicement of the discussion had drawn a 
multitude of the country people, and Burns among the rest, the reverend 
divines, hitherto sworn friends and associates, lost all command of temper, 
and abused each other coram poptdo, with a fiery virulence of personal in- 
vective, such as has long been banished from all popular assemblies, where- 
in the laws of courtesy are enforced by tJiose of a certain unwritten code. 
" The first of my poetic offspring tliat saw the light," says Burns, " was 
a burlesque lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both 
of them draniatls persome in my Holy Fair. I had a notion myself, that 
the piece had some merit ; but to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to 
a friend who was very fond of such things, and told him that 1 could not 
guess who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever. With 
a certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar of 
applause.'' This was The Holy Tailzie^ or Twa Htn-ds. The two herds, 
or pastors, were Mr. Moodie, minister of Riccartoun, and that favourite vic- 
tim of Burns's, John Russell, then minister of Kilmarnock, and afterwards 

of Stirling " From this time," Burns says, *' 1 began to be known in the 

country as a maker of rhymes Holy Wdlies Prayer next made its 

appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several 
meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, and see if any of it might 

be pointed against profane rhymers. Burns's reverend editor, Mr. Paul, 

presents Holy Willie's Prayer at full length, although not inserted in Dr. 
Currie's edition, and calls on the friends of religion to bless the memory of 
the poet who took such a judicious method of " leading the liberal mind to 
a rational view of the nature of prayer." — " This," says that bold com- 
mentator, " w^as not only the prayer of Holy Willie, but it is merely the 
metrical version of every prayer that is offered up by those who call them- 
selves the pure reformed church of Scotland. In the course of his read- 
ing and polemical warfare. Burns embraced and defended the opinions of 
Taylor of Norwich, Macgill, and that school of Divines. He could not 
reconcile his mind to that picture of the Being, whose very essence is 
love, which is drawn by the high Calvinists or the representatives of the 
Covenanters — namely, that he is disposed to grant salvation to none but 
a few of their sect ; that the whole Pagan world, the disciples of Maho- 
met, the Roman Catholics, the Lutherans, and even the Calvinists who 
differ from them in certain tenets, must, like Korah, Dathan and Abiram, 
descend to the pit of perdition, man, woman, and child, without the possi- 
bility of escape ; but such are the identical doctrines of the Cameronians 
of the present day, and such was Ploly Willie's style of prayer. The hy- 
pocrisy and dishonesty of the man, who was at the time a reputed Saint, 
were perceived by the discerning penetration of Burns, and to expose 
them he considered his duty. The terrible view of the Deity exhibited 
in that able production is precisely the same view which is given of him, 
in different words, by many devout {)reachers at present. Tliey inculcate, 
that the greatest sinner is the greatest favourite of heaven — that a reform- 
ed bawd is more acceptable to the Almighty than a pure virgin, who has 
hardly ever transgressed even in thought — that the lost sheep alone will be 
saved, and that the ninety-and-nine out of the hundred will be left in the 
wilderness, to perish withtn.it mercy — that the Saviour of tlie world loves 

6 



xxvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

the elect, not from any lovely qualities which they possess, for they are 
hateful in his sight, but " he loves them because he loves them." Such 
are the sentiments which are breathed by those who are denominated High 
Calvinists, and from which the soul of a poet who loves mankind, and who 
has not studied the system in all its bearings, recoils with horror. . . . The 
gloomy forbidding representation which they give of the Supreme Being, 
has a tendency to produce insanity, and lead to suicide." * 

This Reverend author may be considered as expressing in the above, 
and in other passages of a similar tendenc)'^, the sentiments with which 
even the most audacious of Burns's anti-calvinistic satires were received 
among the Ayrshire divines of the New Light ; that performances so blas- 
phemous should have been, not only pardoned, but applauded by minis- 
ters of religion, is a singular circumstance, which may go far to make the 
reader comprehend the exaggerated state of party feeling in Burns's native 
county, at the period when he first appealed to the public ear : nor is it 
fair to pronounce sentence upon the young and reckless satirist, without tak- 
ing into consideration the undeniable fact — that in his worst offences of 
this kind, he was encouraged and abetted by those, who, to say nothing 
more about their professional character and authority, were almost the 
only persons of liberal education whose society he had any opportunity of 
approaching at the period in question. Had Burns received, at this time, 
from his clerical friends and patrons, such advice as was tendered, when 
rather too late, by a layman who was as far from bigotry on religious sub- 
jects as any man in the world, this great genius might have made his first 
approaches to the public notice in a very different character. — " Let your 
bright talents," — (thus wrote the excellent John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, in 
October 1787), — " Let those bright talents which the Almighty has be- 
stowed on you, be henceforth employed to the noble purpose of supporting 
the cause of truth and virtue. An imagination so varied and forcible as 
yours, may do this in many different modes ; nor is it necessary to be al- 
ways serious, which you have been to good purpose ; good morals may be 
recommended in a comedy, or even in a song. Great allowances are due 
to the heat and inexperience of youth ; — and few poets can boast, like 
Thomson, of never having written a line, which, dying, they would wish to 
blot. In particular, I wish you to keep clear of the thorny walks of satire, 
which makes a man an hundred enemies for one friend, and is doubly dan- 
gerous when one is supposed to extend the slips and weaknesses of indi- 
viduals to their sect or party. About modes of faith, serious and excellent 
men have always differed ; and there are certain curious questions, which 
may afford scope to men of metaphysical heads, but seldom mend the 
heart or temper. Whilst these points are beyond human ken, it is suffi- 
cient that all our sects concur in their views of morals. You will forgive 
me for these hints." 

It is amusing to observe how soon even really Bucolic bards learn^ the 
tricks of their. trade : Burns knew already what lustre a compliment gains 
from being set in sarcasm, when he made Willie call for special notice of 

" Gaun Hamilton's deserts, .... 

He drinks, and swears, and plays at carta ; 
Yet has sae mony taken' arts 

Wi' great and sma', 
Frae God's ain priests the people's hearts 

He steals awa," &c. 

* The Rev. Hamilton Paul's ILdfe^of Burns, pp. 40, 41. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xxvti 

Nor is his other patron, Aiken, introduced with inferior skill, as having 
merited Willie's most fervent execration by his " glib-tongued" defence of 
the heterodox doctor of Ayr : 

" Lord ! visit them wha did employ him. 
And for thy people's sake destroy 'eui." 

Bm-ns owed a compliment to this gentleman for a well-timed exercise of 
his elocutionary talents. " I never knew there was any merit in my poems," 
said he, " until Mr. Aitken read them into repute." 

Encouraged by the *^ roar of applause" which greeted these pieces, thus 
orally promulgated and recommended, he produced in succession various 
satires wherein the same set of persons were lashed ; as The Ordination ; 
The Kirk's Alarm, &c. &c. ; and last, and best undoubtedly, The Holy 
Fair, in which, unlike the others that have been mentioned, satire keeps 
its own place, and is subservient to the poetry of Burns. This was, in- 
deed, an extraordinary performance ; no partizan of any sect could whisper 
that malice had formed its principal inspiration, or that its chief attraction 
lay in the boldness with which individuals, entitled and accustomed to re- 
spect, were held up to ridicule : it was acknowledged amidst the sternest 
mutterings of wrath, that national manners were once more in the hands 
of a national poet. The Holy Fair, however, created admiration, not sur- 
prise, among tlie circle of domestic friends who had been admitted to watch 
the steps of his progress in an art of which, beyond that circle, little or 
nothing was heard until the youthful poet produced at length a satirical 
master-piece. It is not possible to reconcile the statements of Gilbert and 
others, as to some of the minutiae of the chronological history of Burns's 
previous performances ; but there can be no doubt, that although from 
choice or accident, his first provincial fame was that of a satirist, he had, 
some time before any of his philippics on the Auld Light Divines made 
their appearance, exhibited to those who enjoyed his personal confidence, 
a range of imaginative power hardly inferior to what the Holy Fair itself dis- 
plays ; and, at least, such a rapidly improving skill in poetical language 
and versification, as must have prepared them for witnessing, without won- 
der, even the most perfect specimens of his art. Gilbert says, that " among 
the earliest of his poems," w^as the Epistle to Davie, [i. e. Mr. David Sillar), 
and Mr. Walker believes that this was written very soon after the death of 
William Burnes. This piece is in the very intricate and difficult measure 
of the Cherry and the Slae ; and, on the whole, the poet moves with ease 
and grace in his very unnecessary trammels 4 but young poets are careless 
beforeliand of difficulties which w^ould startle the experienced ; and great 
poets may overcome any difficulties if they once grapple with them ; so 
that I should rather ground my distrust of Gilbert's statement, if it must 
be literally taken, on the celebration of Jea7t, with which the epistle ter- 
minates : and, after all, she is celebrated in the concluding stanzas, which 
may have been added some time after the first draught. The gloomy cir- 
cumstances of the poet's personal condition, as described in this piece, 
were common, it cannot be doubted, to all the years of his youthful his- 
tory ; so that no particular date is to be founded upon these ; and if this 
was the first, certainly it was not the last occasion, on which Burns ex- 
ercised his fancy in the colouring of the very worst issue that could attend 
a life of unsuccessful toil. But Gilbert's recollections, however on trivial 
points inaccurate, will always be more interesting than any thing that could 



xxviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

be put in their place. " Robert," says he, " often composed without any 
regular plan. When any thing made a strong impression on his mind, so 
as to rouse it to poetic exertion, he would give way to the impulse, and 
embody the thought in rhyme. If he hit on two or three stanzas to please 
him, he would then think of proper introductory, connecting, and conclud- 
ing stanzas ; hence the middle of a poem was often first produced. It was, 
I think, in summer 1784', when in the interval of harder labour, he and I 
were weeding in the garden (kail-yard), that he repeated to me the prin- 
cipal part of his epistle (to Davie). I believe the first idea of Robert's 
becoming an author was started on this occasion. I was much pleased 
with the epistle, and said to him I was of opinion it would bear being 
printed, and that it would be well received by people of taste ; that I 
thought it at least equal, if not superior, to many of Allan Ramsay's epis- 
tles, and that the merit of these, and much other Scotch poetry, seemed 
to consist principally in the knack of the expression — but here, there was 
a strain of interesting sentiment, and the Scotticism of the language scarce- 
ly seemed affected, but appeared to be the natural language of the poet ; 
that, besides, there was certainly some novelty in a poet pointing out the 
consolations that were in store for him when he should go a-begging. Ro- 
bert seemed very well pleased with my criticism, and he talked of sending 
it to some magazine ; but as this plan afforded no opportunity of knowing 
how it would take, the idea w^as dropped. It was, 1 think, in the winter 
following, as we were going together with carts for coal to the family, (and 
I could yet point out the particular spot), that the author first repeated to 
me the Address to the Deil. The curious idea of such an address was sug- 
gested to him, by running over in his mind the many ludicrous accounts 
and representations we have, from various quarters, of this august person- 
age. Death and Doctor Hornbook, though not published in the Kilmar- 
nock edition, was produced early in the year 1785. The schoolmaster of 
Tarbolton parish, to eke up the scanty subssitence allowed to that useful 
class of men, had set up a shop of grocery goods. Having accidentally 
fallen in with some medical books, and become most hobby-horsically at- 
tached to the study of medicine, he had added the sale of a few medi- 
cines to his little trade. He had got a shop-^bill printed, at the bottom of 
which, overlooking his own incapacity, he had advertised, that '' Advice 
would be given in common disorders at the shop gratis." Robert was at a 
mason-meeting in Tarbolton, when the Dominic unfortunately made too 
ostentatious a display of his medical skill. As he parted in the evening 
from this mixture of pedantry and physic, at the place where he describes 
his meeting with Death, one of those floating ideas of apparitions, he men- 
tions in his letter to Dr. Moore, crossed his mind ; this set him to work for 
the rest of the way home. These circumstances he related when he re- 
peated the verses to me next afternoon, as I was holding the plough, and 
he was letting the water off the field beside rfie. The Epistle to John Lap- 
raz^ was produced exactly on the. occasion described by the author. He 
says in that poem. On Fasten-e'en we had a rockin\ I believe he has omit- 
ted the word rocking in the glossary. It is a term derived from those 
primitive times, when the country-w^omen employed their spare hours in 
spinning on the rock or distaff. This simple implement is a very portable 
one, and well fitted to the social inclination of meeting in a neighbour's 
house ; hence the j)hrase of goiiig a-rocking, or with the rock. As the con- 
nexion the phrase had with the implement was forgotten wlien the rock 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xxix 

gave place to tlie spinning-wheel, the phrase came to be used by both 
sexes on social occasions, and men talk of going with their rocks as well as 
women. It was at one of these rockings at our house, when we had twelve 
or fifteen young people with their rochS) that Lapraik's song, beginning — 
" When I upon thy bosom lean," was sung, and we were informed who was 
the author. Upon this Robert wrote his first epistle to Lapraik ; and his 
second in reply to his answer. The verses to the 3Iouse and Mountain 
Daisy were composed on the occasions mentioned, and while the author 
was holding the plough ; 1 could point out the particular spot where each 
was composed. Holding the plough was a favourite situation with Robert 
for poetic compositions, and some of his best verses were produced while 
he was at that exercise. Several of the poems were produced for the pur- 
pose of bringing forward some favourite sentiment of the author. He used 
to remark to me, that he could not well conceive a more mortifying picture 
of human life than a man seeking work. In casting about in his mind how 
this sentiment might be brought forward, the elegy, Man was made to 
Mourny was composed. Robert had frequently remarked to me, that he 
thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, " Let us 
worship God," used by a decent sober head of a family introducing family 
worship. To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for The Cot' 
tars Saturday Night. The hint of the plan, and title of the poem, were taken 
from Ferguson's Farmers Ingle. When Robert had not some pleasure 
in view, in which I was not thought fit to participate, we used frequently 
to walk together, when the weather was favourable, on the Sunday after- 
noons, (those precious breathing-times to the labouring part of the com- 
munity), and enjoyed such Sundays as would make one regret to see their 
xiumber abridged. It was in one of these walks that I first had the pleasure 
of hearing the author repeat The Cottars Saturday Night. I do not recollect 
to have read or heard any thing by which I was more highly electrified. 
The fifth and six stanzas, and the eighteenth, thrilled with peculiar ecstacy 
through my soul." 

The poems mentioned by Gilbert Burns in the above extract, are among 
the most popular of his brother's performances ; and there may be a time 
for recurring to some of their peculiar merits as works of art. It may be 
mentioned here, that John Wilson, alias Dr. Hornbook, was not merely 
compelled to shut up shop as an apothecary, or druggist rather, by the sa- 
tire which bears his name ; but so irresistible was the tide of ridicule, that 
his pupils, one by one, deserted him, and he abandoned his Schoolcraft also. 
Removing to Glasgow, and turning himself successfully to commercial 
pursuits. Dr. Hornbook survived the local storm which he could not effec- 
tually withstand, and was often heard in his latter days, when waxing cheer- 
ful and communicative over a bowl of punch, " in the Saltmarket," to bless 
the lucky hour in which the dominie of Tarbolton provoked the castigation 
of Robert Burns. In those days the Scotch universities did not turn out 
doctors of physic by the hundred ; Mr. Wilson's was probably the only 
medicine-chest from which salts and senna were distributed for the benefit 
of a considerable circuit of parishes ; and his advice, to say the least of the 
matter, was perhaps as good as could be had, for love or money, among the 
wise women who were the only rivals of his practice. The poem which 
drove him from Ayrshire was not, we may believe, either expected or de- 
signed to produce any sucli serious effect. Poor Hornbook and the poet 
were old acquaintances, and in some sort rival wits at the time in the ma- 
son lodge. 



XXX LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS, 

In Man was made, to Mourn, whatever might be the casual idea that set 
the poet to work, it is but too evident, that he wrote from the habitual 
feelings of his own bosom. The indignation with which he through life 
contemplated the inequality of human condition, and particularly, the con- 
trast between his own worldly circumstances and intellectual rank, was 
never more bitterly, nor more loftily expressed, than in some of those 
stanzas : — 

" See yonder poor o'erlabour'd wight, 

So abject, mean, and vile, 
Who begs a brother of the earth 

To give him leave to toil. 
And see his lordly fellow worm 

The poor petition spurn, 
Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife 

And helpless offspring mourn. 

If I'm design'd yon lordling's slavc-^ 

By Nature's laws design'd— 
Why was an independent wish 

E'er planted in my mind ? 
If not, why am 1 subject to 

His cruelty and scorn, 
Or why has man the will and power 

To make his fellow mourn ?" 

" I had an old grand-uncle," says the poet, in one of his letters to Mrs. 
Dunlop, " with whom my mother lived in her girlish years ; the good old 
man, for such he was, was blind long ere he died ; dm-ing which time his 
highest enjoyment was to sit down and cry, while my mother would sing 
the simple old song of The Life and Age of Man'' 

In Man was made to Mourn, Burns appears to have taken many hints 
from this ancient ballad, which begins thus : 

'♦ Upon the sixteen hundred year of God, and fifty-three, 
Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear, as writings testifie ) 
On January, the sixteenth day, as I did lie alone, 
With many a sigh and sob did say^Ah I man is made to moan !"• 

JTie Cottar's Saturday Night is, perhaps, of all Burns's pieces, the one 
whose exclusion from the collection, were such things possible now-a-days, 
would be the most injurious, if not to the genius, at least to the character, 
of the man. In spite of many feeble lines, and some heavy stanzas, it ap- 
pears to me, that even his genius would suffer more in estimation, by being 
contemplated in the absence of this poem, than of any other single perform- 
ance he has left us. Loftier flights he certainly has made, but in these he 
remained but a short while on the wing, and effort is too often perceptible 
here the motion is easy, gentle, placidly undulating. There is more of the 
conscious security of power, than in any other of his serious pieces of con- 
siderable length ; the whole has the appearance of coming in a full stream 
from the fountain of the heart — a stream that soothes the ear, and has no 
glare on the surface. 

It is delightful to turn from any of the pieces which present so great a 
genius as writhing under an inevitable burden, to this, where his buoyant 
energy seems not even to feel the pressure. The miseries of toil and pe- 
nury, who shall affect to treat as unreal ? Yet they shrunk to small dimen- 
sions in the presence of a spirit thus exalted at once, and softened, by the 
pieties of virgin love, filial reverence, and domestic devotion. 
• Croraek's Scottiali Songs, 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xxxi 

The Cottars Saturday Night and the Ilohj Fair have been put In con- 
trast, and much marvel made that they should have sprung from the same 
source. " The annual celebration of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
in the rural parishes of Scotland, has much in it," says the unfort'jnate 
Heron, " of those old popish festivals, in which superstition, traffic, and 
amusement, used to be strangely intermingled. Burns saw and seized in 
it one of the happiest of all subjects to afford scope for the display of that 
strong and piercing sagacity, by which he could almost intuitively distin- 
guish the reasonable from the absurd, and the becoming from the ridiculous ; 
of that picturesque power of fancy which enabled him to represent scenes, 
and persons, and groups, and looks, and attitudes, and gestures, in a manner 
almost as lively and impressive, even in words, as if all the artifices and ener- 
gies of the pencil had been employed ; of that knowledge which he had ne- 
cessarily acquired of the manners, passions, and prejudices of the rustics 
around him — of whatever was ridiculous, no less than whatever was affect- 
ingly beautiful in rural hfe." This is very good, but who ever disputed the 
exquisite graphic truth of the poem to which the critic refers ? The ques- 
tion remains as it stood ; is there then nothing besides a strange mixture 
of superstition, traffic, and amusement, in the scene which such an annual 
celebration in a rural parish of Scotland presents ? Does nothing of what 
is " affectingly beautiful in rural life," make a part in the original which 
was before the poet's eyes ? Were " Superstition," " Hypocrisy," and 
" Fun," the only influences which he might justly have impersonated ? It 
would be hard, I think, to speak so even of the old popish festivals to which 
Mr. Heron alludes ; it would be hard, surely, to say it of any festival in 
which, mingled as they may be with sanctimonious pretenders, and sur- 
rounded with giddy groups of onlookers, a mighty multitude of devout men 
are assembled for the worship of God, beneath the open heaven, and above 
the tombs of their fathers. > 

Let us beware, however, of pushing our censure of a young poet, mad 
with the inspiration of the moment, from whatever source derived, too far. 
It can hardly be doubted that the author of The Cottars Saturday Night 
had felt, in his time, all that any man can feel in the contemplation of the 
most sublime of the religious observances of his country ; and as little, that 
had he taken up the subject of this rural sacrament in a solemn mood, he 
might have produced a piece as gravely beautiful, as his Holy Fair is 
quaint, graphic, and picturesque. A scene of family worship, on the other 
hand, I can easily imagine to have come from his hand as pregnant with the 
ludicrous as that Holy Fair itself. The family prayers of the Saturday's 
night, and the rural celebration of the Eucharist, are parts of the same sys- 
tem — the system which has made the people of Scotland what they are — 
and what, it is to be hoped, they will continue to be. And when men ask 
of themselves what this great national poet really thought of a system in 
which minds immeasurably inferior to his can see so much to venerate, it 
is surely just that they should pay most attention to what he has delivered 
under the gravest sanction. 

The Reverend Hamilton Paul does not desert his post on occasion of 
The Holy Fair ; he defends that piece as manfully as Holy Willie ; and, 
indeed, expressly applauds Burns for having endeavoured to explode '* a- 
buses discountenanced by the General Assembly." Halloween, a descrip- 
tive poem, perhaps even more exquisitely wrought than the Holy Fair^ 
and oontaixiLUg nothmg that could offend the feelings of anybody, was pro- 



xxxii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

duced about the same period. Burns's art had now reached its climax ; 
but it is time that we should revert more particularly to the personal his- 
tory of the poet. 

He seems to have very soon perceived, that the farm of Mossglel could 
at the best furnish no more than the bare means of existence to so large 
a family ; and wearied with " the prospects drear," from which he only 
escaped in occasional intervals of social merriment, or when gay flashes of 
solitary fancy, for they were no more, threw sunshine on every thing, he 
very naturally took up the notion of quitting Scotland for a time, and try- 
ing his fortune in the West Indies, where, as is well known, the managers 
of the plantations are, in the great majority of cases, Scotchmen of Burns's 
own rank and condition. His letters show, that on two or three different 
occasions, long before his poetry had excited any attention, he had applied 
for, and nearly obtained appointments of this sort, through the intervention 
of his acquaintances in the sea-port of Irvine. Petty accidents, not worth 
describing, interfered to disappoint him from time to time ; but at last a 
new burst of misfortune rendered him doubly anxious to escape from his 
native land ; and but for an accident, his arrangements would certainly 
have been completed. But we must not come quite so rapidly to the last 
of his Ayrshire love-stories. How many lesser romances of this order were 
evolved and completed during his residence at Mossgiel, it is needless to 
inquire ; that they were many, his songs prove, for in those days he wrote 
no love-songs on imaginary Heroines. Mary Morison — 'Behind yon hills 
wliere Stinchar flows — On Cessnock bank there lives a lass — belong to this 
period ; and there are three or four inspired by Mary Campbell — the ob- 
ject of by far the deepest passion that ever Burns knew, and which he has 
accordingly immortalized in the noblest of his elegiacs. In introducing 
to Mr. Thomson's notice the song, — 

" Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
And leave auld Scotia's shore ? — 
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
Across the Atlantic's roar ?" 

Burns says, " In my early years, when I was thinking of going to the West 
Indies, I took this farewell of a dear girl ;" afterwards, in a note on— - 

" Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 
The Castel o' Montgomerie ; 
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, 
Your waters never drumlie." 

he adds, — " After a pretty long trial of the most ardent reciprocal affec- 
tion, we met by appointment on the second Sunday of May, in a sequester- 
ed spot by the banks of Ayr, where we spent a day in taking a farwell be- 
fore she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among 
her friends for our projected change of life. At the close of the autumn 
following she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock, where she had 
scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried 
my dear girl to her grave in a few days, before I could even hear of her ill- 
ness ;" and Mr. Cromek, speaking of the same " day of parting love," gives 
some further particulars. " This adieu," says that zealous inquirer into the 
details of Burns's story, " was performed with all those simple and striking 
ceremonials, which rustic scutiment lias devised to probng tender emotions, 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xxxiii 

and to impose awe. The lovers stood on each side of a small purling brook 
— they laved their hands in the limpid stream — and, holding a Bible be- 
tween them, pronouneed their vows to be faithful to eaeh other. They 
parted — never to meet again." It is proper to add, that Mr. Cromek's story 
has recently been confirmed very strongly by the accidental discovery of a 
Bible presented by Burns to 3la7f/ Campbell, in the possession of her still 
surviving sister at Ardrossan. Upon the boards of the first volume is in- 
scribed, in Burns's hand-writing, — "And ye shall not swear by my name 
falsely — I am the Lord." — Levit. chap. xix. v. 12. On the second volume, 
— " Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine 
oath." — St. Matth. chap, v., v. 33. And, on a blank leaf of either, — " Ro- 
bert Burns, Mossgiel." How lasting was the poet's remembrance of this 
pure love, and its tragic termination, will be seen hereafter. Highland 
Mary seems to have died ere her lover had made any of his more serious 
attempts in poetry. In the Epistle to Mr. Sillar, (as we have already hint- 
ed), the very earliest, according to Gilbert, of these attempts, the poet 
celebrates " his Davie and his Jean" This was Jean Armour, a young 
woman, a step, if any thing, above Burns's own rank in life, the daughter 
of a respectable man, a master-mason, in the village of Mauchline, where 
she was at the time the reigning toast, and who still survives, as the re- 
spected widow of our poet. There are numberless allusions to her maiden 
charms in the best pieces which he produced at Mossgiel ; amongst others 
is the six Belles of Mauchline, at the head of whom she is placed. /"'^ 

*•' In JMauchline tliere dwells six proper youiig belles. 
The pride of the i)lace and its neighbourhootl a' ; 
Their carriaf>e and dress, a stranger would guess, 
In Lon'on or Paris they'd gotten it a* : 

" Miss Millar is fine, Miss Markiand's divine, 

Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss l'>etty is braw ; 
There's beauty and fortune to get wi' Miss Morton, 
But Armour's the jewel for me o' them a'." 

Tlie time is not yet come, in which all the details of this story can be ex- 
pected. Jean Armour found herself pregnant. 

Burns's worldly circumstances were in a most miserable state when he 
was informed of Miss Armour's condition ; and the first announcement of 
it staggered him like a blow. He saw nothing for it but to fly the country 
at once ; and, in a note to James Smith of Mauchline, the confidant of his 
amour, he thus wrote : — " Against two things I am fixed as fate — staying 
at home, and owning her conjugally. The first, by Heaven, I will not do ! 
— the last, by hell, I will never do ! — A good God bless you, and make 

you happy, up to the warmest weeping wish of parting friendship 

If you see Jean, tell her I will meet her, so help me God, in my hour of 
need." The lovers met accordingly ; and the result of the meeting was 
what was to be anticipated from the tenderness and the manliness of Burns's 
feelings. All dread of personal inconvenience yielded at once to the tears 
of the woman he loved, and, ere they parted, he gave into her keeping a 
written acknowledgment of marriage. This, under the circumstances, and 
produced by a person in Miss Armour's condition, according to the Scots 
law, was to be accepted as legal evidence of an irregular marriage having 
really taken place ; it being of course imderstood that the marriage was to 
be formally avowed as soon as the consequences of their imprudence could 
no longer be coiiceujed from her family. The disclosure was deferred to 

7 



xxxiv LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

the last moment, and it was received by the father of Miss Armour with 
equal surprise and anger. Burns, confessing himself to be unequal to the 
maintenance of a family, proposed to go immediately to Jamaica, where he 
hoped to find better fortunes. He offered, if this were rejected, to aban- 
don his farm, which was by this time a hopeless concern, and earn bread, 
at least for his wife and children, by his labour at home ; but nothing could 
appease the indignation of Armour. By what arguments he prevailed on 
his daughter to take so strange and so painful a step we know not ; but the 
fact is certain, that, at his urgent entreaty, she destroyed the document. 

It was under such extraordinary circumstances that Miss Armour be- 
came the mother of twins. — Burns's love and pride, the two most powerful 
feelings of his mind, had been equally wounded. His anger and grief to- 
gether drove him, according to every account, to the verge of absolute 
insanity ; and some of his letters on this occasion, both published and un- 
published, have certainly all the appearance of having been written in as 
deep a concentration of despair as ever preceded the most awful of human 
calamities. His first thought had been, as we have seen, to fly at once 
from the scene of his disgrace and misery ; and this course seemed -now to 
be absolutely necessary. He .was summoned to find security for the main- 
tenance of the children whom he was prevented from legitimating ; but 
the man who had in his desk the immortal poems to which we have been 
referring above, either disdained to ask, or tried in vain to find, pecuniary 
assistance in his hour of need ; and the only alternative that presented it- 
self to his view was America or a jail. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Contents.— 77l« Poet gives up Mossgiel to his Brother Gilbert — Tnten>Js for Jamaica-^ 
Subscription JEdition of his Poems suggested to supply means of outfit — One of 600 copies 
printed at Kilmarnock, 1786 — It brings him extended reputation, and £20 — Also many 
very kind friends, but no patron — In these circumstances, Guaging first hinted to him by 
his early friends, Hamilton and Aiken — Sayings and doings in the first year of his fame — 
Jamaica again in view — Plan desisted from because of encouragement by Dr. Blacklock 
to publish at Edinburgh^ wherein the Poet sojourns. 



" He saw misfortune's cauld nnr''-wcst^ 
Lang mustering up a bitter blast ; 
A jillet brak his heart at last, 

111 may she be ! 
So, took a birth afore the mast, 

An' owre the sea." 

Jamaica was now his mark, for at that time the United States were 
not looked to as the place of refuge they have since become. After some 
little time, and not a little trouble, the situation of assistant-overseer on 
the estate of Dr. Douglas in that colony, was procured for him by one of 
his friends in the town of Irvine. Money to pay for his passage, however, 
he had not ; and it at last occurred to him that the few pounds requisite 
for this purpose, might be raised by the publication of some of the finest 
poems that ever delighted mankind. 

His landlord, Gavin Hamilton, Mr. Aiken, and other friends, encouraged 
him warmly ; and after some hesitation, he at length resolved to hazard an 
experiment which might perhaps better his circumstances ; and, if any tole- 
rable number of subscribers could be procured, could not make them worse 
than they were already. His rural patrons exerted themselves with suc- 
cess in the matter ; and so many copies were soon subscribed for, that 
Burns entered into terms with a printer in Kilmarnock, and began to copy 
out his performances for the press. He carried his MSS. piecemeal to the 
printer ; and encouraged by the ray of light which unexpected patronage 
had begun to throw on his affairs, composed, while the printing was in pro- 
gress, some of the best poems of the collection. The tale of the Twa DogSy 
for instance, with which the volume commenced, is known to have been 
written in the short interval between the publication being determined on 
and the printing begun. His own account of the business to Dr. Moore is 
as follows : — 

" I gave up my part of the farm to my brother : in truth, it was only 
nominally mine ; and made what little preparation was in my power for 
Jamaica. But before leaving my native land, I resolved to publish my 
Poems. I weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power : I 
thought they had merit ; and it was a delicious idea that I should be called 
a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears — a poor negro- 
driver — or, perhaps, a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone to the 



xxxvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

world of spirits. I can truly say that, panvre inconnu as I then was, I had 
pretty nearly as high an idea of mj^self and of my works as I have at this 
moment when the public has decided in their favour. It ever was my opi- 
nion, that the mistakes and blunders, both in a rational and religious point 
of view, of which we see thousands daily guilty, are owing to their igno- 
rance of themselves. — To know myself, had been all along my constant 
study. I weighed myself alone ; I balanced myself with others : I watch- 
ed every means of information, to see how much ground I occupied as a 
man and as a poet : I studied assiduously Nature's design in my formation — 
where the lights and shades in character were intended. I was pretty con- 
fident my poems would meet with some applause ; but, at the worst, the 
roar of the Atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of 
West Indian scenes make me forget neglect. I threw off six hundred copies, 
for which I got subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty.* — My va- 
nity was highly gratified by the reception I met with from the public ; and 
besides, I pocketed nearly £20. This sum came very seasonably, as I was 
thinking of indenting myself, for want of money to procure my passage. As 
soon as I was master of nine guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid 
zone, I took a steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail from the 
Clyde ; for 

" Hungry ruin had me in the wind." 

*< I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the 
terrors of a jail ; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless 
pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell of my few friends ; 
my chest was on the road to Greenock ; I had composed the last song I 
should ever measure in Caledonia, The gloomy mglit is gatliering fast, when 
a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mine, overthrew all my schemes, 
by opening new prospects to my poetic am.bition." 

To the above rapid narrative of the poet, we may annex a few details, 
gathered from his various biographers and from his own letters. — While 
the Kilmarnock edition was in the press, it appears that his friends Hamil- 
ton and Aiken revolved various schemes for procuring him the means of 
remaining in Scotland ; and having studied some of the practical branches 
of mathematics, as we have seen, and in particular guagivg, it occurred to 
himself that a situation in the Excise might be better suited to him than any 
other he was at all likely to obtain by the intervention of such patrons as he 
possessed. He appears to have lingered longer after the publication of the 
poems than one might suppose from his own narrative, in the hope that 
these gentlemen might at length succeed in their efforts in his behalf. The 
poems were received with favour, even with rapture, in the county of Ayr, 
and ere long over the adjoining counties. " Old and young," thus speaks 
Robert Heron, " high and lov/, grave and gay, learned or ignorant, were 
alike delighted, agitated, transported. I was at that time resident in Gal- 
loway, contiguous to Ayrshire, and I can well remember how even plough- 
boys and maid-servants would have glady bestowed the wages they earned 
the most hardly, and which they wanted to purchase necessary clothing, 
if they might but procure the Works of Burns." — The poet soon found 
that his person also had become an object of general curiosity, and that a 
lively interest in his personal fortunes was excited among some of the gen- 

* Gilbert Burns mentions, that a single individual, Mr. Wiilium Parker, merchant in 
Kihiiarnock, Bubscribed for 35 copies. 



LIFE or ROBERT BURNS. xxxvii 

try of the district, when tlie details of his story reached them, as it was 
pretty sure to do, along witli liis modest and manly preface. * Among 
others, the celebarted Professor Dugald Stewart of Edinburgh, and his ac- 
complished lady, then resident at their beautiful seat of Catrine, began to 
notice him with nmcli polite and friendly attention. Dr. Hugh Blair, who 
then held an eminent place in the literary society of Scotland, happened 
to be paying Mr. Stewart a visit, and on reading TJie Holy Fair, at once 
pronounced it the " work of a very great genius ;" and Mrs. Stewart, her- 
self a poetess, flattered him perhaps still more highly by her warm com- 
mendations. But, above all, his little volume happened to attract the no- 
tice of Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop, a lady of high birth and ample fortune, 
enthusiastically attached to her country, and interested in whatever ap- 
peared to concern the honour of Scotland. This excellent woman, while 
slowly recovering from the languor of an illness, laid her hand acciden- 
tally on the new production of the provincial press, and opened the volume 
at The Cottar s Saturday Night. " She read it over," says Gilbert, " with 
the greatest pleasure and surprise ; the poet's description of the simple 
cottagers operated on her mind like the charm of a powerful exorcist, re- 
pelling the demon ennui, and restoring her to her wonted mward harmony 
and satisfaction." Mrs. Dunlop instantly sent an express to Mossgiel, dis- 
tant sixteen miles from her residence, with a very kind letter to Burns, re- 
questing him to supply her, if he could, with half-a-dozen copies of the 
book, and to call at Dunlop as soon as he could find it convenient. Burns 
was from home, but he acknowledged the favour conferred on him in this 
very interesting letter : — 

« Madam, Ayrshire, 1786. 

" I AM truly sorry I was not at home yesterday, when I was so much 
lionoured with your order for my copies, and incomparably more by the 
handsome compliments you are pleased to pay my poetic abilities. I am 
fully persuaded that there is not any class of mankind so feelingly alive to 
the titillations of applause as the sons of Parnassus ; nor is it easy to con- 
ceive how the heart of the poor bard dances with rapture, when those 
whose character in life gives them a right to be polite judges, honour him 
with their approbation. Had you been thoroughly acquainted with me, 
Madam, you could not have touched my darling heart-chord more sweetly 
than by noticing my attempts to celebrate your illustrious ancestor, the 
Saviour of his Country, 

" Great patriot hero ! ill requited chief !" 

" The first book I met with in my early years, which I perused with 
pleasure, was The^ Life of Hannibal ; the next was The History of Sir 
William Wallace : for several of my earlier years I had few other authors ; 
and many a solitary hour have I stole out, after the laborious vocations of 
the day, to shed a tear over their glorious but unfortunate stories. In 
those boyish days I remember in particular being struck with that part oi^ 
Wallace's story where these lines occur — 

*' Syne to the Leglan wood, when it was late, 
To make a silent and a safe retreat." 

* Sec Prose ConiiwsitionK. 



xxxviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

" I chose a fine summer Sunday, the only day my line of life allowed, 
and walked half a dozen of miles to pay my respects to the Leglan wood, 
with as much devout enthsiasm as ever pilgrim did to Loretto ; and as I 
explored every den and dell where I could suppose my heroic countrjrroan 
to have lodged, I recollect (for even then I was a rhymer), that my heart 
glowed with a wish to be able to make a song on him in some measure 
equal to his merits." 

Shortly afterwards commenced a personal acquaintance with this ami- 
able and intelligent lady, who seems to have filled in some degree the place 
of Sage Mentor to the poet, and who never afterwards ceased to befriend 
him to the utmost of her power. His letters to Mrs. Dunlop form a very 
large proportion of all his subsequent correspondence, and, addressed as 
they were to a person, whose sex, age, rank, and benevolence, inspired at 
once profound respect and a graceful confidence, will ever remain the most 
pleasing of all the materials of our poet's biography. 

At the residences of these new acquaintances, Burns was introduced into 
society of a class which he had not before approached ; and of the manner 
in which he stood the trial, Mr. Stewart thus writes to Dr. Currie : — 

" His manners were then, as they continued ever afterwards, simple, 
manly, and independent ; strongly expressive of conscious genius and 
worth ; but without any thing that indicated forwardness, arrogance, or 
vanity. He took his share in conversation, but not more than belonged to 
him ; and listened, with apparent attention and deference, on subjects 
where his want of education deprived him of the means of information. If 
there had been a little more of gentleness and accommodation in his tem- 
per, he would, I think, have been still more interesting ; but he had been 
accustomed to give law in the circle of his ordinary acquaintance ; and his 
dread of any thing approaching to meanness or servility, rendered his man- 
ner somewhat decided and hard. Nothing, perhaps, was more remarkable 
among his various attainments than the fluency, and precision, and origi- 
nality of his language, when he spoke in company, more particularly as he 
aimed at purity in his turn of expression, and avoided, more successfully 
than most Scotsmen, the peculiarities of Scottish phraseology. At this time, 
Burns's prospects in life were so extremely gloomy, that he had seriously 
formed a plan for going out to Jamaica in a very humble situation, not,, 
however, without lamenting that his want of patronage should force him 
to think of a project so repugnant to his feelings, when his ambition aimed 
at no higher an object than the station of an exciseman or ganger in his 
own country." 

The provincial applause of his publication, and the consequent notice of 
his superiors, however flattering such things must have been, were far from 
administering any essential relief to the urgent necessities of Burns's situa- 
tion. Very shortly after his first visit to Catrine, where he met with the 
young and amiable Basil Lord Daer, whose condescension and kindness on 
the occasion he celebrates in some well-known verses, we find the poet 
writing to his friend, Mr. Aiken of Ayr, in the following sad strain : — " I 
have been feeling all the various rotations and movements within respect- 
ing the Excise. There are many things plead strongly against it ; the un- 
certainty of getting soon into business, the consequences of my follies, which 
may perhaps make it impracticable for me to stay at home ; and besides, 
I have for some time been pining under secret wretchedness, from causes 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xxxix 

which you pretty well know — the pang of disappointment, the sting of 
pride, with some wandering stabs of remorse, which never fail to settle on 
my vitals, like vultm*es, when attention is not called away by society, or 
the vagaries of the muse. Even in the hour of social mirth, my gaiety is 
the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner. 
All these reasons urge me to go abroad ; and to all these reasons I have 
only one answer — the feelings of a father. This, in the present mood I am 
in, overbalances every thing that can be laid in the scale against it." 

He proceeds to say, that he claims no right to complain. " The world 
has in general been kind to me, fully up to my deserts. I was for some 
time past fast getting into the pining distrustful snarl of the misanthrope. 
I saw myself alone, unfit for the struggle of life, shrinking at every rising 
cloud in the chance-directed atmosphere of fortune, while, all defenceless, 
I looked about in vain for a cover. It never occurred to me, at least never 
with the force it deserved, that this world is a busy scene, and man a crea- 
ture destined for a progressive struggle ; and that, however I might pos- 
sess a warm heart, and inoffensive manners, (which last, by the by, was 
rather more than I could well boast), still, more than these passive quali- 
ties, there was something to be done. When all my schoolfellows and 
youthful compeers were striking off, with eager hope and earnest intent, 
on some one or other of the many paths of busy life, I was " standing idle 
in the market-place," or only left the chase of the butterfly from flower to 
flower, to hunt fancy from whim to whim. You see. Sir, that if to know 
one's errors, were a probability of mending them, I stand a fair chance ; 
but, according to the reverend Westminster divines, though conviction 
must precede conversion, it is very far from always implying it," 

In the midst of all the distresses of this period of suspense. Burns found 
time, as he tells Mr. Aiken, for some " vagaries of the muse ;" and one or 
two of these may deserve to be noticed here, as throwing light on his per- 
sonal demeanour during this first summer of his fame. The poems appear- 
ed in July, and one of the first persons of superior condition (Gilbert, in- 
deed, says the first) who courted his acquaintance in consequence of having 
read them, was Mrs. Stewart of Stair, a beautiful and accomplished lady. 
Burns presented her on this occasion with some MSS. songs ; and among 
the rset, with one in which her own charms were celebrated in that warm 
strain of compliment which our poet seems to have all along considered 
the most proper to be used whenever this fair lady was to be addressed in 
rh)rme. 

" Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in tliy praise : 
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,- 
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow ; 
There oft, as mild evening sweeps over the lea. 
The sweet-scented birk shadea my Mary and me." 

It was in the spring of the same year, that he happened, in the course 
of an evenmg ramble on the banks of the Ayr, to meet with a young and 
lovely unmarried lady, of the family of Alexander of Ballamyle, of whom, 
it was said, her personal charms corresponded with the character of her 
mind. The incident gave rise to a poem, of which an account will be 
found in the following letter to Miss Alexander, the object of his inspira- 
tion : — 



xl LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

« Madam, Mossgiel, \Ml Nov. 1786. 

" Poets are such outre beings, so much the children of wayward fancy 
and capricious whim, that I beHeve the world generally allows them a 
larger latitude in the laws of propriety, than the sober sons of judgment 
and prudence. I mention this as an apology for the liberties that a name- 
less stranger has taken with you in the enclosed poem, which he begs leave 
to present you with. Whether it has poetical merit any way worthy of the 
theme, I am not the proper judge ; but it is the best my abilities can pro- 
duce ; and what to a good heart will perhaps be a suj)erior grace, it is 
equally sincere as fervent. 

" The scenery was nearly taken from real life, though I dare say. Ma- 
dam, you do not recollect it, as I believe you scarcely noticed the poetic 
reveur as he wandered by you. I had roved out as chance directed in the 
favourite haunts of my muse, on the banks of the Ayr, to view nature in 
all the gaiety of the vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over the 
distant western hills ; not a breath stirred the crimson opening blossom, or 
the verdant spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for a poetic heart. I 
listened to the feathered warblers, pouring their harmony on every hand, 
with a congenial kindred regard, and frequently turned out of my path, 
lest I should disturb their little songs, or frighten them to another station. 
Surely, said I to myself, he must be a \vretch indeed, who, regardless of 
your harmonious endeavour to please him, can eye your elusive flights to 
discover your secret recesses, and to rob you of all the property nature 
gives you, your dearest comforts, your helpless nestlings. Even the hoary 
hawthorn-twig that shot across the way, what heart at such a time but 
must have been interested in its welfare, and wished it preserved from 
the rudely-browsing cattle, or the withering eastern blast ? Such was the 
scene, and such the hour, when in a corner of my prospect, I spied one 
of the fairest pieces of Nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic 
landscape, or met a poet's eye, those visionary bards excepted who hold 
commerce with aerial beings ! Had Calumny and Villany taken my walk, 
they had at that moment sworn eternal peace with such an object. 

" What an hour of inspiration for a poet ! It would have raised plain, 
dull, historic prose into metaphor and measure. 

" The enclosed song was the work of my return home ; and perhaps it 
but poorly answers what might be expected from such a scene. 



I have the honour to be," &c. 



" 'Twas even — the dwey fields were green, 

On every blade the peails hang ;* 
The Zephyr wanton'd round the beam, 

And bore its fragrant sweets aJang ; 
In every glen the mavis sang. 

All nature listening seemed the while, 
Except where green- wood echoes rang, 

Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle. 

With careless step I onward strayed. 
My heart rejoiced in nature's joy. 

When musing in a lonely glade, 
A maiden fair 1 chanc'd to spy ; 

Her look was like the morning's eye, 
Her air like nature's vernal smile, 

* Hang, Scotticism for hun-g. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xli 

Perfection whispered passing by. 
Behold the lass o' Ballochmylc !* 

Fair is the morn in flowery IMay, 

And sweet is night in autumn mild ; 
When roving through tlie garden gay, 

Or wandering in the lonely wild : 
But woman, nature's darling child ! 

There all her charms she does compile: 
Even there her other works are foil'd 

By the bonny lass o' BaUochmyle. 

O had she been a country maid. 

And I the happy country swain. 
Though sheltered in the lowest shed 

That ever rose on Scotland's plain. 
Through weary winter's wind and rain. 

With joy, with rapture, I would toil, 
And nightly to my bosom strain 

The bonny lass o' BaUochmyle. 

Then pride might climb the slippery steep. 

Where fame and honours lofty shine ; 
And thirst of gold might tempt the deep, 

Or downward seek the Indian mine : 
Give me the cot below the pine, 

To tend the flocks or till the soil, 
And every day have joys divine. 

With the bonny lass o' BaUochmyle. 

The autumn of this eventful year was now drawing to a close, and Burns, 
who had already lingered three months in the hope, which he now consi- 
dered vain, of an excise appointment, perceived that another year must be 
lost altogether, unless he made up his mind, and secured his passage to 
the West Indies. The Kilmarnock edition of his poems was, however, 
nearly exhausted ; and his friends enco.::/aged him to produce another at 
the same place, with the view of equipping himself the better for the ne- 
cessities of his voyage. But the printer at Kilmarnock would not under- 
take the new impression unless Burns advanced the price of the paper re- 
quired for it ; and with this demand the poet had no means of complying. 
Mr. Ballantyne, the chief magistrate of Ayr, (the same gentleman to whom 
the poem on the Twa Brigs of Ayr was afterwards inscribed), offered to 
furnish the money ; and probably this kind offer would have been accepted. 
But, ere this matter could be arranged, the prospects of the poet were, in 
a very unexpected manner, altered and improved. 

Burns went to pay a parting visit to Dr. Laurie, minister of Laidoun, 
a gentleman from whom, and his accomplished family, he had previously 
received many kind attentions. After taking farewell of this benevolent 
circle, the poet proceeded, as the night was setting in, " to convey his 
chest," as he says, " so far on the road to Greenock, where he was to em- 
bark in a few days for America." And it was under these circumstances 
that he composed the song already referred to, which he meant as his fare- 
well dirge to his native land, and which ends thus : — 

" FareweU, old Coila's hills and dales, 
Her heathy moors and winding vales, 
The scenes where wretched fancy roves, 
Pursuing past unhappy loves. 

* Variation. The lily's hue and rose's dye 

Bespoke the lass o' Ballochmylc. 
8. 



xlii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Farewell, my friends ! farewell, my foes ! 
My peace with these — my love with those — 
The bursting tears my heart declare, 
Farewell, the bonny banks of Ayr." 

Dr. Laurie had given Bums much good counsel, and what comfort he 
could, at parting ; but prudently said nothing of an effort which he had 
previously made in his behalf. He had sent a copy of the poems, with a 
sketch of the author's history, to his friend Dr. Thomas Blacklock of Edin- 
burgh, with a request that he would introduce both to the notice of those 
persons whose opinions were at the time most listened to in regard to lite- 
rary productions in Scotland, in the hope that, by their intervention. Burns 
might yet be rescued from the necessity of expatriating himself Dr. 
Blacklock's answer reached Dr. Laurie a day or two after Burns had made 
his visit, and composed his dirge ; and it was not yet too late. Laurie 
forwarded it immediately to Mr. Gavin Hamilton, who carried it to Burns. 
It is as follows : — 

" I ought to have acknowledged your favour long ago, not only as a tes- 
timony of your kind remembrance, but as it gave me an opportunity of 
sharing one of the finest, and perhaps one of the most genuine entertain- 
ments of which the human mind is susceptible. A number of avocations- 
retarded my progress in reading the poems ; at last, however, I have finish- 
ed that pleasing perusal. Many instances have I seen of Nature's force or 
beneficence exerted under numerous and formidable disadvantages ; but 
none equal to that with which you have been kind enough to present me. 
There is a pathos and delicacy in his serious poems, a vein of wit and huf^ 
mour in those of a more festive turn, which cannot be too much admired,. 
nor too warmly approved ; and I think I shall never open the book without 
feeling my astonishment renewed and increased. It was my wish to have 
expressed my approbation in verse ; but whether from declining life, or a 
temporary depression of spirits, it is at present out of my power to accom- 
plish that agreeable intention. 

" Mr. Stewart, Professor of Morals In this University, had formerly 
read me three of the poems, and I had desired him to get my name in- 
serted among the subscribers ; but whether this was done or not, I never 
could learn. I have little intercourse with Dr. Blair, but will take care ta 
have the poems communicated to him by the intervention of some mutual 
friend. It has been told me by a gentleman, to whom I showed the per- 
formances, and who sought a copy with diligence and ardour, that the 
whole impression is already exhausted. It were, therefore, much to be 
wished, for the sake of the young man, that a second edition, more nume- 
rous than the former, could immediately be printed ; as it appears certain 
that its intrinsic merit, and the exertions of the author's friends, might give 
it a more universal circulation than any thing of the kind which has beea 
published in my memory." 

We have already seen with what surprise and delight Burns read this 
generous letter. Although he had ere this conversed with more than one 
person of established literary reputation, and received from them atten- 
tions, for which he was ever after grateful, — the despondency of his spirit 
appears to have remained as dark as ever, up to the very hour when his land- 
lord produced Dr. Blacklock's letter. — " There was never," Heron says, 
" perhaps, one among all mankind whom you might more truly have called 
an angel upon earth than Dr. Blacklock. He was guileless and innocent 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xliii 

as a child, yet endowed with manly sagacity and penetration. His heart 
was a perpetual spring of benignity. His feelings were all tremblingly 
alive to the sense of the sublime, the beautiful, the tend6r, the pious, the 
virtuous. Poetry was to him the dear solace of perpetual blindness." This 
was not the man to act as Walpole did to Chatter ton ; to discourage with 
feeble praise, and in order to shift off the trouble of future patronage, to 
bid the poet relinquish poetry and mind his plough. — " Dr. Blacklock," 
says Burns himself, " belonged to a set of critics, for whose applause I had 
not dared to hope. His opinion that I would meet with encouragement in 
Edinburgh, iired me so much, that away I posted for that city, without a 
single acquaintance, or a single letter of introduction. The baneful star 
that had so long shed its blasting influence on my zenith, for once made a 
revolution to the nadir." * 

• Letter to Moore. 



CHAPTER V. 

Contents The Poet winters in Edinburgh, 1786-7 — Bi/ his advejii, the condition of that 

city. Literary, Legal, Philosophieal, Patrician, and Pedantic, is lighted up, as by a meteor 
— He is in the full tide of his fame there, and for a while caressed by the fashionable — 
What happens to him generally in that new world, and his behaviour under the varying and 
very trying circumstances — The tavern life then greatly followed — The Poet tempted beyond 
all former experience by bacchanals of every degree — His conversational talent universally 
admitted, as not the least of his talents — The Ladies like to be carried off their feet by it, 
while the philosophers hardly keep theirs — Edition of 1500 copies by Creech, which yields 
much money to the Poet — Resolves to visit the classic scenes of his own country — Assailed 
with thick-comijig visions of a rejiux to bear him back to the region of poverty and seclusion. 



" Edina ! Scotia's darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and tow'rs, 
Where once beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat legislation's sovereign powers ; 
From marking wilcUy-scatter'd flow'rs, 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, 
And singing, lone, the lingering hours, 

I shelter in thy honour'd shade." 

Burns found several of his old Ayrshire acquaintances established in 
Edinburgh, and, I suppose, felt himself constrained to give himself up 
for a brief space to their society. He printed, however, without delay, a 
prospectus of a second edition of his poems, and being introduced by 
Mr. Dalrymple of Orangefield to the Earl of Glencairn, that amiable 
nobleman easily persuaded Creech, then the chief bookseller in Edinburgh, 
to undertake the publication. The Honourable Henry Erskine, Dean of 
the Faculty of Advocates, the most agreeable of companions, and the most 
benignant of wits, took him also, as the poet expresses it, " under his 
wing." The kind Blacklock received him with all the warmth of paternal 
affection, and introduced him to Dr. Blair, and other eminent literati; 
his subscription lists were soon filled ; Lord Glencairn made interest 
with the Caledonian Hunt, (an association of the most distinguished 
members of the northern aristocracy), to accept the dedication of the forth- 
coming edition, and to subscribe individually for copies. Several noblemen, 
especially of the west of Scotland, came forward with subscription-moneys 
considerably beyond the usual rate. In so small a capital, where every 
body knows every body, that which becomes a favourite topic in one 
leading circle of society, soon excites an universal interest ; and before 
Burns had been a fortnight in Edinburgh, we find him writing to his 
earliest patron, Gavin Hamilton, in these terms : — " For my own affairs, I 
am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as Thomas a Kempis or John Bun- 
yan ; and you may expect henceforth to see my birth-day incribed among 
the wonderful events in the Poor Robin and Aberdeen Almanacks, along 
with the Black Monday, and the Battle of Bothwell Bridge." 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xlv 

It is but a melancholy business to trace among the records of literary 
history, the manner in which most great original geniuses have been greet- 
ed on their first appeals to the world, by the contemporary arbiters of 
taste ; coldly and timidly indeed have the sympathies of professional criti- 
cism flowed on most such occasions in past times and in the present : Pmt 
the reception of Burns was worthy of The Man of Feeling. Mr. Henry 
Mackenzie was a man of genius, and of a polished, as well as a liberal taste. 
After alluding to the provincial circulation and reputation of the first edi- 
tion of the poems, Mr. Mackenzie thus wrote in the Lounger, an Edin- 
burgh periodical of that period : — " I hope I shall not be thought to assume 
too much, if I endeavour to place him in a higher point of view, to call 
for a verdict of his country on the merits of his works, and to claim for 
him those honours which their excellence appears to deserve. In men- 
tioning the circumstance of his humble station, I mean not to rest his pre- 
tensions solely on that title, or to urge the merits of his poetry, when con- 
sidered in relation to the lowness of his birth, and the little opportunity of 
improvement which his education could afford. These particulars, indeed, 
must excite our wonder at his productions ; but his poetry, considered ab- 
stractedly, and without the apologies arising from his situation, seems to 
me fully entitled to command our feelings, and to obtain our applause." 

After quoting various passages, in some of which his readers 

" must discover a high tone of feeling, and power, and energy of expres- 
sion, particularly and strongly characteristic of the mind and the voice of 
a poet," and others as shewing " the power of genius, not less admirable 
in tracing the manners, than in painting the passions, or in drawing the 
scenery of nature," and " with what uncommon penetration and sagacity 
this heaven-taught ploughman, from his humble and unlettered condition, 
had looked on men and manners," the critic concluded with an eloquent 
appeal in behalf of the poet personally : " To repair," said he, " the wrong 
of suffering or neglected merit ; to call forth genius from the obscurity in 
which it had pined indignant, and place it where it may profit or delight 
the world — these are exertions which give to wealth an enviable superiori- 
ty, to greatness and to patronage a laudable pride."* 

The appeal thus made for such a candidate was not unattended to. 
Burns was only a very short time in Edinburgh when he thus wrote to one 
of his early friends : — '• I was, when first honoured with your notice, too 
obscure ; now I tremble lest I should be ruined by being dragged too sud- 
denly into the glare of pohte and learned observation ;" and he concludes 
the same letter with an ominous prayer for " better health and more spi- 
rits."f — Two or three weeks later, we find him writing as follows : — " (Ja- 
nuary 14, 1787). I went to a Mason Lodge yesternight, where the M.W. 
Grand Master Charteris, and all the Grand Lodge of Scotland visited. The 
meeting was numerous and elegant : all the different lodges about town were 
present in all their pomp. The Grand Master, who presided with great so- 
lemnity, among other general toasts gave, ' Caledonia and Caledonia's bard, 
Brother Burns,' which rung through the whole assembly with multiplied 
honours and repeated acclamations. As I had no idea such a thing would 
happen, I was downright thunderstruck ; and trembling in every nerve, 
made the best return in my power. Just as I had finished, one of the 

* The Lounger for Saturday, December 9, 1780. 

t Letter to Mr. BaUantyne of Ayr, December 13, 1786 ; Reliqucs, p. 12. 



xlvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Grand Officers said, so loud that I could hear, with a most comforting ac- 
cent * very well indeed,' which set me something to rights agam. —And 
a few weeks later still, he is thus addressed by one of his old associates 
who was meditating a visit to Edinburgh. " By all accounts, it will be a 
difficult matter to get a sight of you at all, unless your company is bespoke 
a week beforehand. There are great rumours here of your intimacy with 
the Duchess of Gordon, and other ladies of distinction. I am really told 
that — 

« Cards to invite, fiy by thousands each night ;" 

and if you had one, there would also, 1 suppose, be * bribes for your old 
secretary.' I observe you are resolved to make hay while the sun shines, 
and avoid, if possible, the fate of poor Ferguson. Qucereiida pecuma pn^ 
mum est— Virtus post nummos, is a good maxim to thrive by. You seem- 
ed to despise it while in this country ; but, probably, some philosophers 
in Edinburgh have taught you better sense." 

In this proud career, however, the popular idol needed no slave to whis- 
per whence he had risen, and whither he was to return in the ebb of the 
spring-tide of fortune. His « prophetic soul" carried always a sufficient 
memento. He bore all his honours in a manner worthy of himself; and 
of this the testimonies are so numerous, that the only difficulty is that of 
selection. " The attentions he received," says Mr. Dugald Stewart, " from 
all ranks and descriptions of persons, were such as would have turned any 
head but his own. I cannot say that I could perceive any unfavourable effect 
which they left on his mind. He retained the same simplicity of manners 
and appearance which had struck me so forcibly when I first saw him in the 
country ; nor did he seem to feel any additional self-importance from the 
number and rank of his new acquaintance."— Professor Walker, who met him 
for the first time, early in the same season, at breakfast in Dr. Blacklock's 
house, has thus recorded his impressions :— « I was not much struck with his 
first appearance, as I had previously heard it described. His person, though 
strong and well knit, and much superior to what might be expected m a 
ploughman, was still rather coarse in its outline. His stature, from want 
of setting up, appeared to be only of the middle size, but was rather above 
it. His motions were firm and decided, and though without any preten- 
sions to grace, were at the same time so free from clownish constraint, as 
to show that he had not always been confined to the society of his profes- 
sion. His countenance was not of that elegant cast, which is most fre- 
<iuent among the upper ranks, but it was manly and intelligent, and marked 
by a thoughtful gravity which shaded at times into sternness. In his large 
dark eye the most striking index of his genius resided. It was full of mind ; 
and would have been singularly expressive, under the management of one 
who could employ it with more art, for the purpose of expression. He 
was plainly, but properly dressed, in a style mid-way between the holiday 
costume of a farmer, and that of the company with which he now associ- 
ated. His black hair, without powder, at a time when it was very gene- 
rally worn, was tied behind, and spread upon his forehead. Upon the 
whole, from his person, physiognomy, and dress, had I met him near a sea- 
port, and been required to guess his condition, I should have probably con- 
jectured him to be the master of a merchant vessel of the most respectable 
class. In no part of his manner was there the slightest degree of affecta- 
tion, nor could a stranger have suspected, from any thing in his behaviour 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xlvii 

or conversation, that he had been for some months the flivourite of all the 
fashionable circles of a metropolis. In conversation he was powerful. His 
conceptions and expression were of corresponding vigour, and on all subjects 
were as remote as possible from common places. Though somewhat autho- 
ritative, it was in a way which gave little offence, and was readily imputed 
to his inexperience in those modes of smoothing dissent and softening asser- 
tion, which are important characteristics of polished manners. After break- 
fast I requested him to communicate some of his unpublished pieces, and 
he recited his farewell song to the Banks of Ayr, introducing it with a des- 
cription of the circumstances in which it was composed, more striking than 
the poem itself. I paid particular attention to his recitation, which was 
plain, slow, articulate, and forcible, but without any eloquence or art. He 
did not always lay the emphasis with propriety, nor did he humour the 
sentiment by the variations of his voice. He was standing, during the time, 
with his face towards the window, to which, and not to his auditors, he di- 
rected his eye — thus depriving himself of any additional effect which the 
language of his composition might have borrowed from the language of his 
countenance. In this he resembled the generality of singers in ordinary 
company, who, to shun any charge of affectation, withdraw all meaning 
from their features, and lose the advar/.age by which vocal performers on 
the stage augment the impression, and give energy to the sentiment of the 
song. The day after my first introduction to Burns, I supped in company 
with him at Dr. Blair's. The other guests were very few, and as each 
had been invited chiefly to have an opportunity of meeting with the poet, 
the Doctor endeavoured to draw him out, and to make him the central 
figure of the group. Though he therefore furnished the greatest propor- 
tion of the conversation, he did no more than what he saw evidently was 
expected." * 

To these reminiscences I shall now add those of one to whom is always 
readily accorded the willing ear. Sir Walter Scott. — He thus writes : — 
<* As for Burns, I may truly say, Virgilium vidi tantum. I was a lad of 
fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinburgh, but had sense and 
feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given 
the world to know him ; but I had very little acquaintance with any lite- 
rary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two 
sets that he most frequented. Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that time 
a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his 
lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word ; otherwise I 
might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him 
one day at the late venerable Professor Fergusson's, where there were se- 
veral gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remember the cele- 
brated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course we youngsters sat silent, looked, 
and listened. The only thing I remember which was remarkable in Burns's 
manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of Bunbury's, re- 
presenting a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on 
one side, — on the other, his widow, with a child in her ai'ms. These lines 
were written beneath,— 

" Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, 
Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain — 
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, 
The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew, 

* Morrison's Burns, vol. i. pp. Ixxi, Ixxii, 



xlviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Gave the sad presage of his future years, 
The child of misery baptized in tears." 

" Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather the ideas which 
it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the 
lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they 
occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising 
title of The Justice of Peace. I whispered my information to a friend 
present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and 
a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received, and still recollect, 
with very great pleasure. 

" His person was strong and robust ; his manners rustic, not clownish ; 
a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its ef- 
fect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His 
features; are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys 
the idea, that they are diminished as if seen in perspective. I think his 
countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I 
would have taken the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very sa- 
gacious country farmer of the old Scotch school, i. e. none of your modern 
agriculturists, who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the douce gude- 
wati who held his 6wn plough. There was a strong expression of sense and 
shrewdness in all his lineaments ; the eye alone, I think, indicated the 
poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, 
which glowed (1 say literally gloived) when he spoke with feeling or inte- 
rest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen 
the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation expressed perfect 
self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who 
were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself 
with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness ; and 
when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at 
the same time with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conver- 
sation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him again, except 
in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect Jhe 
should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh, but (considering what lite- 
rary emoluments have been since his day) the efforts made for his relief 
were extremely trifling. I remember on this occasion I mention, I thought 
Burns's acquaintance with English Poetry was rather limited, and also, that 
having twenty times the abilities of Allan Ramsay and of Ferguson, he 
talked of them with too much humility as his models ; there was, doubt- 
less, national predilection in his estimate. This is all I can tell you about 
Burns. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. 
He was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the Lal^-d. I do not 
speak in malam partem, when I say, I never saw a man in company with 
his superiors in station and information, more perfectly free from either 
the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. I was told, but did not 
observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and al- 
ways v/ith a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their 
attention particularly. I have heard the late Duchess of Gordon remark 
this. — I do not know any thing I can add to these recollections of forty 
years since," — 

There can be no doubt that Burns made his first appearance at a period 
highly favourable for his reception as a British, and especially as a Scottish 
poet. Nearly forty years had elapsed since the death of Thomson :— 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xlix 

Collins, Gray, Goldsmith, had successively disappeared : — Dr. Johnson 
had belied the rich promise of his early appearance, and confined him- 
self to prose ; and Cowper had hardly begun to be recognized as having 
any considerable pretensions to fill the long-vacant throne in England. At 
home — without derogation from the merits either of Douglas or the Min- 
strel, be it said — men must have gone back at least three centuries to find 
a Scottish poet at all entitled to be considered as of that high order to which 
the generous criticism of Mackenzie at once admitted " the Ayrshire 
Ploughman." Of the form and garb of his composition, much, unquestion- 
ably and avowedly, was derived from his more immediate predecessors, 
Ramsay and Ferguson : but there was a bold mastery of hand in his pic- 
turesque descriptions, to produce any thing equal to which it was neces- 
sary to recall the days of Christ's Kirk on the Green, and Peebles to the 
Play ; and in his more solemn pieces, a depth of inspiration, and a massive 
energy of language, to which the dialect of his country had been a stranger, 
at least since " Dunbar the IMackar." The Muses of Scotland had never 
indeed been silent ; and the ancient minstrelsy of the land, of which a slen- 
der portion had as yet been committed to the safeguard of the press, was 
handed from generation to generation, and preserved, in many a fragment, 
faithful images of the peculiar tenderness, and peculiar humour, of the na- 
tional fancy and character — precious representations, which Burns himself 
never surpassed in his happiest efforts. But these were fragments ; and 
with a scanty handful of exceptions, the best of them, at least of the seri- 
ous kind, were very ancient. Among the numberless effusions of the 
Jacobite Muse, valuable as we now consider them for the record of man- 
ners and events, it would be difficult to point out half-a-dozen strains 
worthy, for poetical excellence alone, of a place among the old chivalrous 
ballads of the Southern, or even of the Highland Border. Generations had 
passed away since any Scottish poet had appealed to the sympathies of his 
countrymen in a lofty Scottish strain. 

The dialect itself had been hardly dealt with. " It is my opinion," said 
Dr. Geddes, " that those who, for almost a century past, have written in 
Scotch, Allan Ramsay not excepted, have not duly discriminated the ge- 
nuine idiom from its vulgarisms. They seem to have acted a similar part 
to certain pretended imitators of Spenser and Milton, who fondly imagine 
that they are copying from these great models, when they only mimic their 
antique mode of spelling, their obsolete terms, and their irregular construc- 
tions." And although 1 cannot well guess what the doctor considered as 
the irregular constructions of Milton, there can be no doubt of the gerieral 
justice of his observations. Ramsay and Ferguson were both men of hum- 
ble condition, the latter of the meanest, the former of no very elegant 
habits ; and the dialect which had once pleased the ears of kings, who 
themselves did not disdain to display its powers and elegances in verse, 
did not come untarnished through their hands. Ferguson, who was en- 
tirely town-bred, smells more of the Cowgate than of the country ; and 
pleasing as Ramsay's rustics are, he appears rather to have observed the 
surface of rural manners, in casual excursions to Pennycuikand the Hun- 
ter's Tryste, than to have expressed the results of intimate knowledge and 
sympathy. His dialect was a somewhat incongruous mixture of the Upper 
Ward of Lanarkshire and the Luckenbooths ; and he could neither write 
English verses, nor engraft English phraseology on his Scotch, without be- 
traying a lamentable want of siiill in the use of his instruments. It was re- 

9 



1 LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

served for Burns to interpret the inmost soul of the Scottish peasant in all 
its moods, and in verse exquisitely and intensely Scottish, without degrad- 
ing either his sentiments or his language with one touch of vulgarity. Such is 
the delicacy of native taste, and the power of a truly masculine genius. This 
is the more remarkable, when we consider that the dialect of Burns's na- 
tive district is, in all mouths but his own, a peculiarly offensive one. The 
few poets * whom the west of Scotland had produced in the old time, were 
all men of high condition ; and who, of course, used the language, not of 
their own villages, buc of Holyrood. Their productions, moreover, in o 
far as they have been produced, had nothing to do with the peculiar cha- 
racter and feelings of the men of the west. As Barns himself has said, — 
" It is somewhat singular, that in Lanark, Renfrew, Ayr, &c. there is 
scarcely an old song or tune, which, from the title, &c. can be guessed to 
belong to, or be the production of, those counties." 

The history of Scottish literature, from the union of the crowns to that 
of the kingdoms, has not yet been made the subject of any separate work 
at all worthy of its importance ; nay, however much we are indebted to the 
learned labours of Pinkerton, Irving, and others, enough of the general ob- 
scurity of which Warton complained still continues, to the no small discre- 
dit of so accomplished a nation. But how miserably the literature of the 
country was affected by the loss of the court under whose immediate pa- 
tronage it had, in almost all preceding times, found a measure of protec- 
tion that will ever do honour to the memory of the unfortunate house of 
Stuart, appears to be indicated with sufficient plainness in the single fact, 
that no man can point out any Scottish author of the first rank in all the 
long period which intervened between Buchanan and Hume. The re- 
moval of the chief nobility and gentry, consequent on the Legislative Union, 
appeared to destroy our last hopes as a separate nation, possessing a se- 
parate literature of our own ; nay, for a time, to have all but extinguished 
the flame of intellectual exertion and ambition. Long torn and harassed 
by religious and political feuds, this people had at last heard, as many be- 
lieved, the sentence of irremediable degradation pronounced by the lips of 
their own prince and parliament. The universal spirit of Scotland was 
humbled; the unhappy insurrections of 1715 and 1745 revealed the full 
extent of her internal disunion ; and England took, in some respects, mer- 
ciless advantage of the fallen. 

Time, however, passed on ; and Scotland, recovering at last from the 
blow which had stunned her energies, began to vindicate her pretensions, 
in the only departments which had been left open to her, with a zeal and 
a success which will ever distinguish one of the brightest pages of her his- 
tory. Deprived of every national honour and distinction which it was pos- 
sible to remove — all the high branches of external ambition lopped off, — 
sunk at last, as men thought, effectually into a province, willing to take 
law with passive submission, in letters as well as polity, from her powerful 
sister — the old kingdom revived suddenly from her stupor, and once more 
asserted her name in reclamations which England was compelled not only 
to hear, but to applaud, and " wherewith all Europe rung from side to 
side," at the moment when a national poet came forward to profit by the 
reflux of a thousand half-forgotten sympathies — amidst the full joy of a na- 
tional pride revived and re-established beyond the dream of hope. 

" Such as Kennedy, Shaw, Montgomery, and, more lately, Hamilton of Gilbertfield. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ji 

It will always reflect honour on the galaxy of eminent men of letters, 
who, in their various departments, shed lustre at that period on the name 
of Scotland, that they suffered no pedantic prejudices to interfere with 
their reception of Burns. Had he not appeared personally among them, 
it may be reasonably doubted whether this would have been so. They 
were men, generally speaking, of very social habits ; living together in a 
small capital ; nay, almost all of tlien?, in 0' about one street, maintaining 
friendly intercourse continually ; not a few of them considerably addicted 
to the pleasures which have been called, by way of excellence, I presume, 
convivial. Burns's poetry might have procured him access to these circles ; 
but it was the extraordinary resources he displayed in conversation, the 
strong vigorous sagacity of his observations on life and manners, the splen- 
dour of his wit, and the glowing energy of his eloquence when his feelings 
were stirred, that made him the object of serious admiration among these 
practised masters of the arts of talk. There were several of them who 
probably adopted in their hearts the opinion of Newton, that " poetry is 
ingenious nonsense." Adam Smith, for one, could have had no very ready 
respect at the service of such an unproductive labourer as a maker of Scot- 
tish ballads ; but the stateliest of these philosophers had enough to do to 
maintain the attitude of equality, when brought into personal contact with 
Burns's gigantic understanding ; and every one of them whose impressions 
on the subject have been recorded, agrees in pronouncing his conversation 
to have been the most remarkable thing about him. And yet it is amus- 
ing enough to trace the lingering reluctance of some of these polished scho- 
lars, about admitting, even to themselves, in his absence, what it is cer- 
tain they all felt sufficiently when they were actually in his presence. It 
is difficult, for example, to read without a smile that letter of Mr. Dugald 
Stewart, in which he describes himself and Mr. Alison as being surprised 
to discover that Burns, after reading the latter author's elegant Essay on 
Taste, had really been able to form some shrewd enough notion of the 
general principles of the association of ideas. 

Burns would probably have been more satisfied with himself in these 
learned societies, had he been less addicted to giving free utterance in con- 
versation to the very feelings which formed the noblest inspirations of his 
poetry. His sensibility was as tremblingly exquisite, as his sense was 
masculine and solid ; and he seems to have ere long suspected that the pro- 
fessional metaphysicians who applauded his rapturous bursts, surveyed them 
in reality with something of the same feeling which may be supposed to 
attend a skilful surgeon's inspection of a curious specimen of morbid ana- 
tomy. Why should he lay his inmost heart thus open to dissectors, who 
took special care to keep the knife from their own breasts ? The secret 
blush that overspread his haughty countenance when such suggestions oc- 
cured to him in his solitary hours, may be traced in the opening lines of a 
diary which he began to keep ere he had been long in Edinburgh. " April 
9, 1787. — As I have seen a good deal of human life in Edinburgh, a 
great many characters which are new to one bred up in the shades of life, 
as I have been, I am determined to take down my remarks on the spot. 
Gray observes, in a letter to Mr. Palgrave, that, < half a word fixed, upon, 
or near the spot, is worth a cart-load of recollection.' I don't know how 
it is with the world in general, but witli me, making my remarks is by no 
means a solitary pleasure. I want some one to laugh with me, some one 
to be grave with me, some one to please me and help my discrimination, 



lii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

with his or her own remark, and at times, no doubt, to admire my acute- 
ness and penetration. The world are so busied with selfish pursuits, am- 
bition, vanity, interest, or pleasure, that very few think it worth their while 
to make any observation on what passes around them, except where that 
observation is a sucker, or branch, of the darling plant they are rearing in 
their fancy. Nor am I sure, notwithstanding all the sentimental flights of 
novel-writers, and the sage philosophy of moralists, whether we are cap- 
able of so intimate and cordial a coalition of friendship, as that one man may 
pour out his bosom, his every thought and floating fancy, his very inmost 
soul, with unreserved confidence, to another, without hazard of losing part 
of that respect which man deserves from man ; or, from the unavoidable 
imperfections attending human nature, of one day repenting his confidence. 
For these reasons I am determined to make these pages my confidant. 
I will sketch every character that any way strikes me, to the best of my 
power, with unshrinking justice. 1 will insert anecdotes, and take down 
remarks, in the old law phrase, without feud or favour. — Where I hit on 
any thing clever, my own applause will, in some measure, feast my vanity ; 
and, begging Patroclus' and Achates' pardon, I think a lock and key a se- 
curity, at least equal to the bosom of any friend whatever." And the same 
lurking thorn of suspicion peeps out elsewhere in this complaint : " I know 
not how it is ; I find I can win liking — but not respect." 

" Burns (says a great living poet, in commenting on the free style of Dr. 
Currie) was a man of extraordinary genius, whose birth, education, and em- 
ployments had placed and kept him in a situation far below that in which the 
writers and readers of expensive volumes are usually found. Critics upon 
works of fiction have laid it down as a rule that remoteness of place, in 
fixing the choice of a subject, and in prescribing the mode of treating it, is 
equal in effect to distance of time ; — restraints may be thrown off accord- 
ingly. Judge then of the delusions which artificial distinctions impose, 
when to a man like Dr. Currie, writing with views so honourable, the so- 
cial condition of the individual of whom he was treating, could seem to 
place him at such a distance from the exalted reader, that ceremony might 
be discarded with him, and his memory sacrificed, as it were, almost with- 
out compunction. This is indeed to be crushed beneath the furrow's 
weight."* It would be idle to suppose that the feelings here ascribed, and 
justly, no question, to the amiable and benevolent Currie, did not often 
find their way into the bosoms of those persons of superior condition and 
attainments, with whom Burns associated at the period when he first e- 
merged into the blaze of reputation ; and what found its way into men's 
bosoms was not likely to avoid betraying itself to the perspicacious glance 
of the proud peasant. How^ perpetually he was alive to the dread of being 
looked down upon as a man, even by those who most zealously applauded 
the works of his genius, might perhaps be traced through the whole se- 
quence of his letters. When writing to men of high station, at least, he 
preserves, in every instance, the attitude of self-defence. But it is only 
in his own secret tables that we have the fibres of his heart laid bare ; and 
the cancer of this jealousy is seen distinctly at its painful work : habenms 
reum et confitentem. " There are few of the sore evils under the sun give 
me more uneasiness and chagrin than the comparison how a man of genius, 
nay, of avowed worth, is received everywhere, with the reception which a 

* i\Ir. Wordsworth's letter to a friend of Burns, p. 12. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. liii 

mere ordinary character, decorated with the trappings and futile distinc- 
tions of fortune, meets. I imagine a man of abilities, his breast glowing 
with honest pride, conscious that men arc born equal, still giving honour 
to whom honour is due ; he meets, at a great man's table, a Squire some- 
thing, or a Sir somebody ; he knows the noble landlord, at heart, gives the 
bard, or whatever he is, a share of his good wishes, beyond, perhaps, any 
one at table ; yet how will it mortify him to see a fellow, whose abili- 
ties would scarcely have made an eightpenny tailor, and whose heart is not 
worth three farthings, meet with attention and notice, that are withheld 
from the son of genius and poverty ? The noble Glencairn has wounded 
me to the soul here, because I dearly esteem, respect, and love him. He 
showed so much attention — engrossing attention, one day, to the only 
blockhead at table, (the whole company consisted of his lordship, dunder- 
pate, and myself/, that I was within half a point of throwing down my gage 
of contemptuous defiance ; but he shook my hand, and looked so benevo- 
lently good at parting — God bless him ! though I should never see hira 
more, I shall love him until my dying day ! I am pleased to think I am so 
capable of the throes of gratitude, as I am miserably deficient in some other 
virtues. With Dr. Blair I am more at my ease. I never respect him with 
humble veneration ; but when he kindly interests himself in my welfare, or 
still more, w^hen he descends from his pinnacle, and meets me on equal 
ground in conversation, my heart overflows with what is called liking. 
When he neglects me for the mere carcass of greatness, or when his eye 
measures the difference of our points of elevation, I say to myself, wdth 
scarcely any emotion, what do I care for him, or his pomp either ?" " It 
is not easy (says Burns) forming an exact judgment of any one ; but, in 
my opinion, Dr. Blair is merely an astonishing proof of what industry and 
application can do. Natural parts like his are frequently to be met with ; 
his vanity is proverbially known among his own acquaintances ; but he is 
justly at the head of what may be called fine writing, and a critic of the 
first, the very first rank in prose ; even in poetry a bard of nature's mak- 
ing can only take the pass of him. He has a heart, not of the very finest 
water, but far from being an ordinary one. In short, he is a truly worthy 
and most respectable character." 

A nice speculator on the ' follies of the wise,' D'Israeli, * says — " Once 
we were nearly receiving from the hand of genius the most curious sketches 
of the temper, the irascible humours, the delicacy of soul, even to its 
shadowiness, from the warm sbozzos of Burns, when he began a diary of 
his heart — a narrative of characters and events, and a chronology of his 
emotions. It was natural for such a creature of sensation and passion to 
project such a regular task, but quite impossible to get through it." This 
most curious document, it is to be observed, has not yet been printed en- 
tire. Another generation will, no doubt, see the whole of the confession ; 
however, what has already been given, it may be surmised, indicates suf- 
ficiently the complexion of Burns's prevailing moods during his moments 
of retirement at this interesting period of his history. It was in such a 
mood (they recurred often enough) that he thus reproached " Nature, par- 
tial nature :" — 

*' Thou givest the ass his hide, the snail his shell ; 
The invenom'd wasp victorious guards his cell : 

* D'Israeli on the Literary Character, vol. i. p. 136. 



liv LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

But, oh ! thou bitter stepmother, and hard, 

To thy poor fenceless naKecl child, the bard. .' . 

In naked feeling and in aching pride, 

He bears the unbroken blast from every side." 

No blast pierced this haughty soul so sharply as the contumely of conde- 
scension. 

One of tlie poet's remarks, when he first came to Edinburgh, has been 
handed down to us by Cromek. — It was, " that between the men of rustic 
life and the polite world he observed little difference — that in the former, 
though unpolished by fashion an,d unenlightened by science, he had found 
much observation, and much intelligence — but a refined and accomplished 
woman was a thing almost new to him, and of which he had formed but a 
very inadequate idea." To be pleased, is the old and the best receipt how 
to please ; and there is abundant evidence that Burns's success, among the 
high-born ladies of Edinburgh, was much greater than among the " stately 
patricians," as he calls them, of his own sex. The vivid expression of one 
of them has almost become proverbial — that she never met with a man, 
" whose conversation so completely carried her off her feet," as Burns's. 
The late Duchess of Gordon, who was remarkable for her own conversa- 
tional talent, as well as for her beauty and address, is supposed to be here 
referred to. But even here, he was destined to feel ere long something of 
the fickleness of fashion. He confessed to one of his old friends, ere the 
season was over, that some who had caressed him the most zealously, no 
longer seemed, to know him, when he bowed in passing their carriages, 
and many more acknowledged his salute but coldly. 

It is but too true, that ere this season was over. Burns had formed con- 
nexions in Edinburgh which could not have been regarded with much ap- 
probation by the eminent literati, in whose society his debut had made so 
powerful an impression. But how much of the blame, if serious blame, 
indeed, there was in the matter, ought to attach to his own fastidious jea- 
lousy — how much to the mere caprice of human favour, we have scanty 
means of ascertaining : No doubt, both had their share ; and it is also suf- 
ficiently apparent that there were many points in Burns's conversational 
habits which men, accustomed to the delicate observances of refined so- 
ciety, might be more willing to tolerate under the first excitement of per- 
sonal curiosity, than from any very deliberate estimate of the claims of such 
a genius, under such circumstances developed. He by no means restricted 
his sarcastic observations on those whom he encountered in the world to 
the confidence of his note-book ; but startled polite ears with the utterance 
of audacious epigrams, far too witty not to obtain general circulation in so 
small a society as that of the northern capital, far too bitter not to produce 
deep resentment, far too numerous not to spread fear almost as widely as 
admiration. Even when nothing was farther from his thoughts than to in^ 
flict pain, his ardour often carried him headlong into sad scrapes ; witness, 
for example, the anecdote given by Professor Walker, of his entering into 
a long discussion of the merits of the popular preachers of the day, at the 
table of Dr. Blair, and enthusiastically avowing his low opinion of all the 
rest in comparison with Dr. Blair's own colleague * and most formidable 
rival — a man, certainly, endowed with extraordinary graces of voice and 
manner, a generous and amiable strain of feeling, and a copious flow of 
language ; but having no pretensions either to the general accomplishments 

• Dr. Robert Walker. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Iv 

for which Blair was honoured in a most accomplished society, or to the 
polished elegance which he first introduced into the eloquence of the Scot- 
tish pulpit. Mr. Walker well describes the unplcasing effects of such an 
escapade; the conversation during the rest of the evening, " labouring un- 
der that compulsory effort which was unavoidable, while the thoughts of 
all were full of the only subject on which it was improper to speak." Burns 
showed his good sense by making no effort to repair this blunder ; but years 
afterwards, he confessed tliat he could never recall it without exquisite 
pain. Mr. Walker properly says, it did honour to Dr. Blair that his kind- 
ness remained totally unaltered by this occurrence ; but the Professor 
would have found nothing to admire in that circumstance, had he not been 
well aware of the rarity of such good-nature among the genus irritabik of 
authors, orators, and wits. 

A specimen (which some will think worse, some better) is thus recorded 
by Cromek : — " At a private breakfast, in a literary circle of Edinburgh, 
the conversation turned on the poetical merit and pathos of Grays Elegy, 
a. poem of which he was enthusiastically fond. A clergyman present, re- 
markable for his love of paradox and for his eccentric notions upon every 
subject, distinguished himself by an injudicious and ill-timed attack on this 
exquisite poem, which Burns, with generous warmth for the reputation of 
Gray, manfully defended. As the gentleman's remarks were rather gene- 
ral than specific. Burns urged him to bring forward the passages which he 
thought exceptionable. He made several attempts to quote the poem, but 
always in a blundering, inaccurate manner. Burns bore all this for a good 
while with his usual good-natured forbearance, till at length, goaded by 
the fastidious criticisms and wretched quibblings of his opponent, he roused 
himself, and with an eye flashing contempt and indignation, and with great 
vehemence of gesticulation, he thus addressed the cold critic : — ' Sir, I now 
perceive a man may be an excellent judge of poetry by square and rule, 

and after all be a d d blockhead.' " — Another of the instances may be 

mentioned, which shew the poet's bluntness of manner, and how true the 
remark afterwards made by Mr. Ramsay is, that in the game of society he 
did not know when to play on or off. While the second edition of his Poems 
was passing through the press. Burns was favoured with many critical sug- 
gestions and amendments ; to one of which only he attended. Blair, read- 
ing over with him, or hearing him recite (which he delighted at all times 
in doing) his Holy Fair, stopped him at the stanza— i 

Now a' the congregation o'er 

Is silent expectation, 
For Russel speels the holy door 

Wi' tidings o' Salvation. — 

Nay, said the Doctor, read damnation. Burns improved the wit of this 
verse, undoubtedly, by adopting the emendation; but he gave another 
strange specimen of want of iacty when he insisted that Dr. Blair, one of 
the most scrupulous observers of clerical propriety, should permit him to 
acknowledge the obligation in a note. 

But to pass from these trifles, it needs no effort of imagination to con- 
ceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all either 
clergymen or professors) must have been in the presence of this big-boned, 
black-browed, brawny stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who, having 
forced his way among them from the plough-tail at a single stride, mani- 



Ivi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

fested, in the whole strain of his bearing and conversation, a most thorough 
conviction, that, in the society of the most eminent men of his nation, he 
was exactly where he was entitled to be ; hardly deigned to flatter them 
by exhibiting even an occasional symptom of being flattered by their no- 
tice ; by turns calmly measured himself against the most cultivated under- 
standings of his time in discussion ; overpowered the hon mots of the most 
celebrated convivialists by broad floods of merriment, impregnated with all 
the burning life of genius ; astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the 
thrice-piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them to tremble — nay to 
tremble visibly — beneath the fearless touch of natural pathos ; and all this 
without indicating the smallest willingness to be ranked among those pro- 
fessional ministers of excitement, who are content to be paid in money and 
smiles for doing what the spectators and auditors would be ashamed of do- 
ing in their own persons, even if they had the power of doing it ; and, — 
last and probably worst of all, — who was known to be in the habit of en- 
livening societies winch they would have scorned to approach, still more 
frequently than their own, with eloquence no less magniflcent ; with wit in 
all likelihood still more daring ; often enough, as the superiors whom he 
fronted without alarm might have guessed from the beginning, and had, 
ere long, no occasion to guess, with v/it pointed at themselves. 

The lawyers of Edinburgh, in whose wider circles Burns figured at his 
outset, with at least as much success as among the professional literati, 
were a very diiferent race of men from these ; they would neither, I take 
it, have pardoned rudeness, nor been alarmed by wit. But being, in those 
days, with scarcely an exception, members of the landed aristocracy of the 
country, and forming by far the most influential body (as indeed they still 
do) in the society of Scotland, they were, perhaps, as proud a set of men 
as ever enjoyed the tranquil pleasures of unquestioned superiority. What 
their haughtiness, as a body, was, may be guessed, when we know that in- 
ferior birth was reckoned a fair and legitimate ground for excluding any 
man from the bar. In one remarkable instance, about this very time, a 
man of very extraordinary talents and accomplishments was chiefly opposed 
in a long and painful struggle for admission, and, in reality, for no reasons 
but those I have been alluding to, by gentlemen who in the sequel stood 
at the very head of the Whig party in Edinburgh ; * and the same aristo- 
cratical prejudice has, within the memory of the present generation, kept 
more persons of eminent qualifications in the background, for a season, 
than any English reader would easily believe. To this body belonged 
nineteen out of twenty of those " patricians," whose stateliness Burns so 
long remembered and so bitterly resented. It might, perhaps, have been 
well for him had stateliness been the worst fault of their manners. Wine- 
bibbing appears to be in most regions a favourite indulgence with those 
whose brains and lungs are subjected to the severe exercises of legal study 
and forensic practice. To this day, more traces of these old habits linger 
about the inns of court than in any other section of London. In Dublin 
and Edinburgh, the barristers are even now eminently convival bodies of 
men ; but among the Scotch lawyers of the time of Burns, the principle of 
jollity was indeed in its " high and palmy state." He partook largely in 
those tavern scenes of audacious hilarity, which then soothed, as a matter 

* Mr. John Wild, son of a Tobacconist in the High Street, Eclmburgh. He came to be 
Professor of Civil law in that University ; but, in the end, was also an instance of unliappy 
genius. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ivii 

of course, the arid labours of the northern noblesse de la robe. The tavern- 
hfe is now-a-(lays nearly extinct every where ; but it was then in full 
vigour in Edinburgh, and there can be no doubt that Burns rapidly fami- 
liarized himself with it during his residence. He had, after all, tasted but 
rarely of such excesses while in Ayrshire. So little are we to consider 
his Scotch Driiik, and other jovial strains of the early period, as conveying 
any thing like a fair notion of his actual course of life, that " Auld Nanse 
Tinnock," or " Poosie Nancie," the Mauchline landlady, is known to have 
expressed, amusingly enough, her surprise at the style in which she found 
her name celebrated in the Kilmarnock edition, saying, " that Robert 
Burns might be a very clever lad, but he certainly was regardless, as, to the 
best of her belief, he had never taken three half-mutchkins in her house in 
all his life." And in addition to Gilbert's testimony to the same purpose, 
we have on record that of Mr. Archibald Bruce, a gentleman of great 
worth and discernment, that he had observed Burns closely during that 
period of his life, ahd seen him " steadily resist such solicitations and al- 
lurements to excessive convivial enjoyment, as hardly any other person could 
have withstood." — The unfortunate Heron knew Burns well ; and himself 
mingled largely in some of the scenes to which he adverts in the following 
strong language : — " The enticements of pleasure too often unman our vir- 
tuous resolution, even while we wear the air of rejecting them with a stern 
brow. We resist, and resist, and resist ; but, at last, suddenly turn, and 
passionately embrace the enchantress. The bucks of Edinburgh accom- 
plished, in regard to Burns, that in which the boors of Ayi'shire had failed. 
After residing some months in Edinburgh, he began to estrange himself, 
not altogether, but in some measure, from graver friends. Too many of 
his hours were now spent at the tables of persons who delighted to urge 
conviviality to drunkenness — in the tavern — and in the brothel." It would 
be idle now to attempt passing over these things in silence ; but it could 
serve no good purpose to dwell on them. During this ivintei'. Burns con- 
tinued to lodge with John Richmond, indeed, to share his bed ; and we 
have the authority of this, one of the earliest and kindest friends of the 
poet, for the statement, that while he did so, " he kept good hours." He 
removed afterwards to the house of Mr. William NicoU, one of the teachers 
of the High School of Edinburgh. NicoU was a man of quick parts and 
considerable learning — who had risen from a rank as humble as Burns's : 
from the beginning an enthusiastic admirer, and, ere long, a constant associ- 
ate of the poet, and a most dangerous associate ; for, with a warm heart, 
the man united an irascible temper, a contempt of the religious institutions 
of his country, and an occasional propensity for the bottle. Of Nicoll'is 
letters to Burns, and about him, I have seen many that have never been, 
and probably that never will be, printed — cumbrous and pedantic effusions, 
exhibiting nothing that one can imagine to have been pleasing to the poet, 
except a rapturous admiration of his genius. This man, nevertheless, was, 
I suspect, very far from being an unfavourable specimen of the society to 
which Heron thus alludes : — " He (the poet) suffered himself to be sur- 
rounded by a race of miserable beings, who were proud to tell that they 
had been in company with Burns, and had seen Burns as loose and as 
foolish as themselves. He was not yet irrecoverably lost to temperance 
and moderation ; but he was already almost too much captivated with their 
wanton revels, to be ever more won back to a faithful attachment to their 
more sober charms." Heron adds — " He now also began to contract some- 

10 



Iviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

thing of new arrogance in conversation. Accustomed to be, among his 
favourite associates, M-hat is vulgarly, but expressively called, the cock of 
the company, he could scarcely refrain from indulging in similar freedom 
and dictatorial decision of talk, even in the presence of persons who could 
less patiently endure his presumption ;" * an account ex facie probable, and 
which sufficiently tallies with some hints in Mr. Dugald Stewart's descrip- 
tion of the poet's manners, as he first observed him at Catrine, and with 
one or two anecdotes already cited from Walker and Cromek. 

Of these failings, and indeed of all Burns's failings, it may be safely as- 
serted, that there was more in his history to account and apologize for 
them, than can be alleged in regard to almost any other great man's imper- 
fections. We have seen, how, even in his earliest days, the strong thirst 
of distinction glowed within him — how in his first and rudest rhymes he 
sung, 

" to be great is charming ;" 

and we have also seen, that the display of talent in conversation was the 
first means of distinction that occurred to him. It was by that talent that 
he first attracted notice among his fellow peasants, and after he mingled 
with the first Scotsmen of his time, this talent was still that which appear- 
ed the most astonishing of all he possessed. What wonder that he should 
delight in exerting it where he could exert it the most freely — where there 
was no check upon a tongue that had been accustomed to revel in the li- 
cense of village-mastery? where every sally, however bold, was sure to be 
received with triumphant applause — where there were no claims to rival 
his — no proud brows to convey rebuke, above all, perhaps, no grave eyes 
to convey regret ? 

But these, assuredly, were not the only feelings that influenced Burns : 
In his own letters, written during his stay in Edinburgh, we have the best 
evidence to the contrary. He shrewdly suspected, from the very begin- 
ning, that the personal notice of the great and the illustrious was not to be 
as lasting as it was eager : he foresaw, that sooner or later he was destined 
to revert to societies less elevated above the pretensions of his birth ; and, 
though his jealous pride might induce him to record his suspicions in lan- 
guage rather too strong than too weak, it is quite impossible to read what 
he wrote without believing that a sincere distrust lay rankling at the roots 
of his heart, all the while that he appeared to be surrounded with an at- 
mosphere of joy and hope. On the 15th of January 1787, we find him 
thus addressing his kind patroness, Mrs. Dunlop : — " You are afraid I shall 
grow intoxicated with my prosperity as a poet. Alas ! Madam, I know 
myself and the world too well. I do not mean any airs of affected modesty ; 
I am willing to believe that my abilities deserved some notice ; but in a 
most enlightened, informed age and nation, when poetry is and has been 
the study of men of the first natural genius, aided with all the powers of 
polite learning, polite books, and polite company — to be dragged forth to 
the full glare of learned and polite observation, with all my imperfections 
of awkward rusticity, and crude unpolished ideas, on my head, — I assure 
you, Madam, I do not dissemble, when I tell you I tremble for the conse- 
quences. The novelty of a poet in my obscure situation, without any of 
those advantages which are reckoned necessary for that character, at least 

* Heron, p. 28. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. llx 

at this time of day, lias raised a partial tide of public notice, which has 
borne me to a height where I am absolutely, feelingly certain, my abilities 
are inadequate to support me ; and too surely do I see that time, when the 
same tide will leave me, and recede perhaps as far below the mark of 
truth. ... 1 mention this once for all, to disburden my mind, and I 
do not wish to hear or say any more about it. But — ' When proud for- 
tune's ebbing tide recedes,' you will bear me witness, that when ni}- bubble 
of fame was at the highest, I stood unintoxicated with the inebriating cup 
in my hand, looking forward with rueful resolve." — And about the same 
time, to Dr. Moore : — " The hope to be admired for ages is, in by far the 
greater part of those even who are authors of repute, an unsubstantial 
dream. For my part, my first ambition was, and still my strongest wish 
is, to please my compeers, the rustic inmates of the hamlet, while ever- 
changing language and manners shall allow me to be relished and under- 
stood. I am very willing to admit that I have some poetical abilities ; and 
as few, if any writers, either moral or poetical, are intimately acquainted 
with the classes of mankind among v.hom I have chiefly mingled, I may 
have seen men and manners in a different phasis from what is common, 
which may assist originality of thought I scorn the affecta- 
tion of seeming modesty to cover self-conceit. That I have some merit, I 
do not deny ; but I see, with frequent Avringings of heart, that the novelty 
of my character, and the honest national prejudice of my countrymen, have 
borne me to a height altogether untenable to my abilities." — And lastly, 
April the 23d, 1787, we have the following passage in a letter also to Dr, 
Moore : — " I leave Edinburgh in the course of ten days or a fortnight. I 
shall return to my rural shades, in all likelihood never more to quit them. 
I have formed many intimacies and friendships here, but I am afraid they are 
all of too tender a construction to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles.*' 
One word more on the subject which introduced these quotations : — Mr. 
Dugald Stewart, no doubt, hints at what was a common enough complaint 
among the elegant literati of Edinburgh, when he alludes, in his letter to 
Currie, to the " not very select society" in which Burns indulged himself. 
But two points still remain somewhat doubtful ; namely, whether, show 
and marvel of the season as he was, the " Ayrshire ploughman" really had 
it in his power to live always in society which Mr. Stewart would have con- 
sidered as " very select ;" and secondly, whether, in so doing, he could 
have failed to chill the affection of those humble Ayrshire friends, who, hav- 
ing shared with him all that they possessed on his first arrival in the metro- 
polis, faithfully "and fondly adhered to him, after the springtide of fashion- 
able favour did, as he foresaw it would do, " recede ;" and, moreover, per- 
haps to provoke, among the higher circles themselves, criticisms more dis- 
tasteful to his proud stomach, than any probable consequences of the course 
of conduct which he actually pursued. The second edition of Burns's 
poems was published early in March, by Creech ; there were no less than 
1500 subscribers, many of whom paid more than the shop-price of the vo- 
lume. Although, therefore, the final settlement with the bookseller did not 
take place till nearly a year after. Burns now found himself in possession 
of a considerable sum of ready money ; and the first impulse of his mind 
was to visit some of the classic scenes of Scottish history and romance. He 
had as yet seen but a small part of his own countr}^, and this by no means 
among the most interesting of her districts, until, indeed, his own poetry 
made it ^qual, on that score, to any other. — « The appellation of a Scottish 



Ix LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

bard is by far my highest pride ; to continue to deserve it, is my most ex- 
alted ambition. Scottish scenes, and Scottish story, are the themes I 
could wish to sing. I have no dearer aim than to have it in my power, 
unplagued with the routine of business, for which. Heaven knows, I am 
unfit enough, to make leisurely pilgrimages through Caledonia ; to sit on 
the fields of her battles, to wander on the romantic banks of her rivers, 
and to muse by the stately towers or venerable ruins, once the honoured 
abodes of her heroes. But these are Utopian views." ^ 

The magnificent scenery of the capital itself had filled him with extraor- 
dinary delight. In the spring mornings, he walked very often to the top of 
Arthur's Seat, and, lying prostrate on the turf, surveyed the rising of the 
sun out of the sea, in silent admiration ; his chosen companion on such oc- 
casions being that ardent lover of nature, and learned artist, Mr. Alexander 
Nasmyth. It was to this gentleman, equally devoted to the fine arts, as to 
liberal opinions, that Burns sat 'for the portrait engraved to Creech's edi- 
tion, and which is here repeated. Indeed, it has been so often repeated, and 
has become so familiar, that to omit it now would be felt as a blank equal 
almost to the leaving out of one of the principal poems. The poet's dress 
has also been chronicled, remarkably as he then appeared in the first hey- 
day of his reputation, — blue coat and buff vest, with blue stripes, (the 
Whig-livery), very tight buckskin breeches, and tight jockey boots. 

The Braid hills, to the south of Edinburgh, were also among his favourite 
morning walks ; and it was in some of these that Mr. Dugald Stewart tells 
us, " he charmed him still more by his private conversation than he had 
ever done in company." " He was," adds the professor, " passionately fond 
of the beauties of nature, and I recollect once he told me, when I was ad- 
miring a distant prospect in one of our morning walks, that the sight of so 
many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind which none could un- 
derstand who had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and the worth 
which they contained." Burns was far too busy with society and observa- 
tion to find time for poetical composition, during his first residence in 
Edinburgh. Creech's edition included some pieces of great merit, which 
had not been previously printed ; but, with the exception of the Address to 
Edinburgh^ all of them appear to have been written before he left Ayrshire. 
Several of them, indeed, were very early productions : The most important 
additions were. Death and Doctor Hojubook, The Brigs of Ayr, The Ordi- 
nation, and the Address to the unco Giiid. In this edition also, When Guild- 
ford guid our pilot stood, made its first appearance. 

The evening before he quitted Edinburgh, the poet addressed a let- 
ter to Dr. Blair, in which, taking a most respectful farewell of him, and 
expressing, in lively terms, his sense of gratitude for the kindness he had 
shown him, he thus recurs to his own views of his own past and future con- 
dition : " I have often felt the embarrassment of my singular situation. 
However the metor-like novelty of my appearance in the world might at- 
tract notice, I knew very well, that my utmost merit was far unequal to 
the task of preserving that character when once the novelty was over. I 
have made up my mind, that abuse, or almost even neglect, will not sur- 
prise me in my quarters." 

It ought not to be omitted, that our poet bestowed some of the first fruits 
of Creech's edition in the erection of a decent tombstone over the hitherto 

• Letter to Mrs. Dunlop, Edinburgh, 22d March 1787. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 



Ixi 



neglected remains of his unfortunate predecessor, Robert Ferguson, in the 
Canongate churchyard. It seems also due to him here to insert his Address 
to Edinburgh, — so graphic and comprehensive, — as the proper record of 
the feelings engendered in his susceptible and grateful mind by the kind- 
ness shown to him, in his long visit, and under which feelings he was now 
about to quit it for a time. 



ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH. 



Edina ! Seotm''s darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and towers, 
Where once beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat legislation's sovereign pow'rs ! 
From marking wildly-scatter'd flowers, 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, 
And singing, lone, the lingering hours, 

I shelter in thy honour'd shade. 

Here wealth still swells the golden tide, 

As busy trade his labours plies ; 
There architecture's noble pride 

Bids elegance and splenclour rise ; 
Here justice, from her native skies, 

High wields her balance and her rod ; 
There learning, with his eagle eyes. 

Seeks science in her coy abode. 

Thy sons, Edina, social, kind, 

With open arms the stranger hail ; 
Their views enlarged, their liberal mind, 

Above the narrow, rural vale ; 
Attentive still to sorrow's wail. 

Or modest merit's silent claim ; 
And never may their sources fail ! 

And never envy blot their name. 

Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn ! 

Gay as the gilded summer's sky. 
Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn. 

Dear as the raptured thrill of joy ! 
Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye, 

Heav'n's beauties on my fancy shine : , 
I see the sire of love on high., 

And own his work indeed divine ! 



There, watching high the least alarms, 

Thy rough rude tortress gleams afar : 
Like some bold vet'ran grey in arms, 

And mark'd with many a seamy scar : 
The pon'drous wall and massy bar. 

Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock : 
Have oft withstood assailing war, 

And oft repell'd th' invader's shock. 

With awe-struck thought and pitying tears- 

I view that noble, stately dome. 
Where Scotia's kings of other years, 

Famed heroes, had their royal home. 
Alas ! how changed the times to come ! 

Their royal name low in the dust ; 
Their hapless race wild-wand'ring roam ! 

Tbo' rigid law cries out, 'twas just ! 

Wild beats my heart to trace your steps, 

Whose ancestors in days of yore. 
Thro' hostile ranks and ruin'd gaps 

Old Scotia's bloody lion bore : 
E'en / who sing in rustic lore, 

Haply my sires have left their shed, 
And faced grim dangei's loudest roar, 

Bold following where your fathers led ! 

Edina ! Scotia^s darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and tow'rs. 
Where once beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat legislation's sov'reign pow'rs ! 
From marking wildly-scatter'd flowers, 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, 
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours, 

I shelter m thy honour'd shade. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Contents. — Makes three several pilgrimages in Caledonia— Lands from the first of thentf 
after an absence of six months, amongst his friends in the " A.uld Clay Siggin" — Finds 
honour in his own country — Falls in with many kind friends during those pilgrimages, and 
is familiar with the great, hut never secures one effective patron — Anecdotes and Sketches — 
Lingers in Edinburgh amidst the Jieshpnts, winter 1787-8 — Upset in a hackney coachy 
which produces a bruised limb, and mournful musings for six weeks — Is enrolled in the Ex- 
cise — Another crisis, in which the Poet finds it necessary to implore even his friend Mrs. 
Dunlop not to desert him — Growls over his publisher, but after settling with him leaves 
Edinburgh with ^500 — Steps towards a more regular life. 



" Ramsay and famous Ferguson, 
Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon ; 
Yarrow and Tweed to monie a tune 

Thro' Scotland rings, 
While Irvine, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon, 

Naebody sings.*' 

On the 6th of May, Burns left Edinburgh, in company with Mr. Robert 
Ainshe, Writer to the Signet, the son of a proprietor in Berwickshire — 
Among other changes " which fleeting time procureth," this amiable gen- 
tleman, whose youthful gaiety made him a chosen associate of Burns, is now 
chiefly known as the author of some Manuals of Devotion. — They had 
formed the design of perambulating the picturesque scenery of the south- 
ern border, and in particular of visiting the localities celebrated by the 
old minstrels, of whose works Burns was a passionate admirer. 

This was long before the time when those fields of Scottish romance were 
to be made accessible to the curiosity of citizens by stage-coaches ; and 
Burns and his friend performed their tour on horseback ; the former being 
mounted on a favourite mare, whom he had named Jenny Geddes, in ho- 
nour of the good woman who threw her stool at the Dean of Edinburgh's 
head on the 23d of July 1637, when the attempt was made to introduce a 
Scottish Liturgy into the service of St. Giles's. The merits of the trusty 
animal have been set forth by the poet in very expressive and humorous 
terms, in a letter to his friend Nicoll while on the road, and which will be 
found entire in the Correspondence. He writes : — " My auid ga'd gleyde 
o' a meere has huchyalled up hill and down brae, as teuch and birnie as a 
vera devil, wi' me. It's true she's as puir's a sangmaker, and as hard's a 
jcirk, and lipper-laipers when she takes the gate, like a lady's gentlewoman 
in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle ; but she's a yauld poutherin girran 
for a' that. When ance her ringbanes and pavies, her cruiks and cramps, 
are fairly soupled, she beets to, beets to, and aye the hindmost hour the 
lightest," &c. &c. 

Burns passed from Edinburgh to Berrywell, the residence of Mr. Ainslie's 
family, and visited successively Dunse, Coldstream, Kelso, Fleurs, and the 
ruins of Roxburgh Castle, near which a holly bush still marks the spot on 






LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixiii 

which James II. of Scotland was killed by the bursting of a cannon. Jedburgh 
— where he admired the '' charming romantic situation of the town, with gar- 
dens and orchards intermingled among the houses of a once magnificent ca- 
thedral (abbey);" and was struck, (as in the other towns of the same district), 
with the appearance of " old rude grandure," and the idleness of decay ; 
Melrose. *' that flir-famed glorious ruin," Selkirk, Ettrick, and the braes of 
Yarrow. Having spent three weeks in this district, of which it has been 
justly said, " that every field has its battle, and every rivulet its song," 
Burns passed the Border, and visited Alnwick, Warkworth, Morpeth, New- 
castle, Hexham, Wardrue, and Carlisle. He then turned northwards, and 
rode by Annan and Dumfries to Dalswinton, where he examined Mr, 
Miller's property, and was so much pleased with the soil, and the terms 
on which the landlord was willing to grant him a lease, that he resolved to 
return again in the course of the summer. 

The poet visited, in the course of his tour. Sir James Hall of Dunglas, 
author of the well known Essay on Gothic Architecture, &c. ; Sir Alexander 
and Lady Harriet Don, (sister to his patron. Lord Glencairn). at Newton- 
Don ; Mr. Brydone, the author of Travels in Sicily ; the amiable and 
learned Dr. Somerville of Jedburgh, the historian of Queen Anne, &c. ; and, 
as usual, recorded in his journal his impressions as to their manners and 
characters. His reception was everywhere most flattering. The sketch 
of his tour is a very brief one. It runs thus : — 

" Saturday, May 6. Left Edinburgh — Lammer-muir hills, miserably 
dreary in general, but at times very picturesque. 

" Lanson-edge, a glorious view of the Merse. Reach Berry well. . . 
The family-meeting with my compagnon de voyage, very charming ; parti- 
cularly the sister. 

" Sunday. Went to church at Dunse. Heard Dr. Bowmaker. 

" Monday. Coldstream — glorious river Tweed — clear and majestic — 
fine bridge — dine at Coldstream with Mr. Ainslie and Mr. Foreman. Beat 
Mr. Foreman in a dispute about Voltaire. Drink tea at Lennel-House with 
Mr. and Mrs. Brydone. . . . Reception extremely flattering. Sleep at 
Coldstream. 

" Tuesday. Breakfast at Kelso — charming situation of the town — fine 
bridge over the Tweed. Enchanting views and prospects on both sides of 
the river, especially on the Scotch side. . . . Visit Roxburgh Palace 
— fine situation of it. Ruins of Roxburgh Castle — a holly bush growing 
where James the Second was accidentally killed by the bursting of a can- 
non. A small old religious ruin and a fine old garden planted by the reli- 
gious, rooted out and destroyed by a Hottentot, a maitre d' hotel of the 
Duke's ! — Climate and soil of Berwickshire, and even Roxburghshire, su- 
perior to Ayrshire — bad roads — turnip and sheep husbandry, their great, 
improvements. . . . Low markets, consequently low lands — magnifi- 
cence of farmers and farm-houses. Come up the Teviot, and up the Jed 
to Jedburgh, to lie, and so wish myself good night. 

" Wednesday. Breakfast with Mr. Fair. . , . Charming romantic 
situation of Jedburgh, with gardens and orchards, intermingled among the 
houses and the ruins of a once magnificent cathedral. All the towns here 
have the appearance of old rude grandeur, but extremely idle. — Jed, a fine 
romantic little river. Dined with Capt. Rutherford, . . . return to 
Jedburgh. Walked up the Jed with some ladies to be shown Love-lane, 
and Blackburn, two fairy scenes. Introduced to Mr. Potts, writer, and to 



Ixiv LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Mr. Somervilie, the clergyman of the parish, a man, and a gentleman, but 
sadly addicted to punning. 



" Jedburgh^ Saturday. Was presented by the Magistrates with the free- 
dom of the town. Took farewell of Jedburgh, with some melancholy sen- 
sations. 

" Monday, May 14, Kelso. Dine with the farmer's club— all gentlemen 
talking of high matters — each of thern keeps a hunter from £30 to £50 
value, and attends the fox-hunting club in the country. Go out with Mr. 
Ker, one of the club, and a friend of Mr. Ainslie's, to sleep. In his mind 
and manners, Mr. Ker is astonishingly like my dear old friend Robert Muir 
— Every tiling in his house elegant. He offers to accompany me in my 
English tour. 

" Tuesday. Dine with Sir Alexander Don ; a very wet day. » . • 
Sleep at Mr. Ker's again, and set out next day for Melrose — visit Dryburgh, 
a fine old ruined abbey, by the way. Cross the Leader, and come up the 
Tweed to Melrose. Dine there, and visit that far-famed glorious ruin — - 
Come to Selkirk up the banks of Ettrick. The whole country hereabouts, 
both on Tweed and Ettrick, remarkably stony." 

He wrote no verses, as far as is known, during this tour, except a humor- 
ous Epistle to his bookseller, Creech, dated Selkirk, LSth May. In thi& 
he makes complimentary allusions to some of the men of letters who were 
used to meet at breakfast in Creech's apartments in those days — whence 
the name of CreecJis Levee ; and touches, too, briefly on some of the sce- 
nery he had visited. 

" Up wimpling stately Tweed I've sped, 
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed, 
And Ettrick banks now roaring red, 

While tempests blaw." 

Burns returned to Mauchline on the 8th of July. It is pleasing to imagine- 
the delight with which he must have been received by the family after the 
absence of six months, in which his fortunes and prospects had undergone 
so wonderful a change. He left them comparatively unknown, his tender- 
est feelings torn and wounded by the behaviour of the Armours, and so 
miserably poor, that he had been for some weeks obliged to skulk from the 
Sheriff's officers, to avoid the payment of a paltry debt. He returned, 
his poetical fame established, the whole country ringing with his praises, 
from a capital in which he was known to have formed the wonder and de- 
light of the polite and the learned ; if not rich, yet with more money al- 
ready than any of his kindred had ever hoped to see him possess, and with 
prospects of future patronage and permanent elevation in the scale of so- 
ciety, which might have dazzled steadier eyes than those of maternal and 
fraternal affection. The prophet had at last honour in his own country 
but the haughty spirit that had preserved its balance in Edinburgh, was 
not likely to lose it at Mauchline ; and we have him writing from the auld 
clay biggin on the 18th of June, in terms as strongly expressive as any 
that ever came from his pen, of that jealous pride which formed the ground- 
work of his character; that dark suspiciousness of fortune, which the sub- 
sequent course of his history too well justified ; that nervous intolerance of 
condescension, and consummate scorn of meanness, which attended him 
through life, and made the study of his species, for which nature had given 
him such extraordinary qualifications, the source of more pain than was 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixv 

ever counterbalanced by the exquisite capacity for enjoyment with which 
he was also endowed. There are few of his letters in which more of the 
dark traits of his spirit come to light than in the following extract : — 
*' I never, my friend, thought mankind capable of any thing very gene- 
rous ; but the stateliness of the patricians of Edinburgh, and the servility 
of my plebeian brethren, (who, perhaps, formerly eyed me askance), since I 
returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my spe- 
cies. I have bought a pocket-Milton, which I carry perpetually about me, 
in order to study the sentiments, the dauntless magnanimity, the intrepid 
unyielding independence, the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hard- 
ship, in that great personage — Satan. . . . The many ties of acquaintance 
and friendship I have, or think I have, in life — I have felt along the lines, 
and, d — n them, they are almost all of them of such frail texture, that I 
am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of 
fortune." 

Among those who now appeared sufficiently ready to court his society, 
were the family of Jean Armour. Burns's regard for tliis affectionate young 
woman had outlived his resentment of her father's disavowal of him in the 
preceding summer ; and from the time of this reconciliation, it is probable 
he looked forward to a permanent union with the mother of his children. 

Burns at least fancied himself to be busy with serious plans for his fu- 
ture establishment ; and was very naturally disposed to avail himself, as far 
as he could, of the opportunities of travel and observation, which an inter- 
val of leisure might present. Moreover, in spite of his gloomy language, a 
specimen of which has just been quoted, we are not to doubt that he de- 
rived much pleasure from witnessing the extensive popularity of his writ- 
ings, and from the flattering homage he was sure to receive in his own per- 
son in the various districts of his native country ; nor can any one wonder 
that, after the state of high excitement in which he had spent the winter 
and spring, he, fond as he was of his family, and eager to make them par- 
takers in all his good fortune, should have, just at this time, found himself 
incapable of sitting down contentedly for any considerable period together, 
in so humble and quiet a circle as that of Mossgiel. His appetite for wan- 
dering appears to have been only sharpened by his Border excursion. After 
remaining a few days at home, he returned to Edinburgh, and thence pro- 
ceeded on another short tour, by way of Stirling, to Inverary, and so back 
again, by Dumbarton and Glasgow, to Mauchline. Of this second excur- 
sion, no journal has been discovered ; nor do the extracts from his corres- 
pondence, printed by Dr. Currie, appear to be worthy of much notice. In 
one, he briefly describes the West Highlands as a country " where savage 
streams tumble over savage mountains, thinly overspread with savage flocks, 
which starvingly support as savage inhabitants :" and in another, he gives 
an account of Jenny Geddes running a race after dinner with a Highlander's 
pony — of his dancing and drinking till sunrise at a gentleman's house on 
Loch Lomond ; and of other similar matters. — " I have as yet," says he, 
" fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of life. I am, just 
as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. However, 
I shall somewhere have a farm soon." 

In the course of this tour, Burns visited the mother and sisters of his 
friend, Gavin Hamilton, then residing at Harvieston, in Clackmannanshire, 
in the immediate neighbourhood of the magnificent scenery of Castle Camp- 
bell, and the vale of Devon. Castle Campbell, called otherwise the Castle 

\\ 



Ixvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

of Gloom^ is grandly situated in a gorge of the Ochills, commanding an 
extensive view of the plain of Stirling. This ancient possession of the 
Argyll family was, in some sort, a town-residence of those chieftains in the 
days when the court was usually held at Stirling, Linlithgow, or Falkland. 
The castle was burnt by Montrose, and has never been repaired. The 
Cauldron Linn and Rumbling Brigg of the Devon lie near Castle Camp- 
bell, on the verge of the plain. He was especially delighted with one of 
the young ladies ; and, according to his usual custom, celebrated her in 
a song, in which, in opposition to his general custom, there is nothing but 
the respectfulness of admiration. 

How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Devon, 
With green spreading bushes, and flowers blooming fair ; 

But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon 
Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr. 

IMild be the sun on this sweet blushing flower, 

In the gay rosy morn as it bathes in the dew ! 
And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower, 

That steals on the evening each leaf to renew, 

O spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes. 

With chill hoary wing as ye usher the dawn ! 
And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizes 

The verdure and pride of the garden. and lawn ! 

Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies, 

And England triumphant display her proud rose ; 
A fairer than either adorns the green valleys. 

Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows. 

At Harviestonbank, also, the poet first became acquainted with Miss 
Chalmers, afterwards Mrs. Hay, to whom one of the most interesting se- 
ries of his letters is addressed. Indeed, with the exception of his letters to 
Mrs. Dunlop, there is, perhaps, no part of his correspondence which may 
be quoted so uniformly to his honour. It was on this expedition that, 
having been visited with a high flow of Jacobite indignation while viewing 
the neglected palace at Stirling, he was imprudent enough to write some 
verses bitterly vituperative of the reigning family on the window of his 
inn. These verses were copied and talked of; and although the next time 
Burns passed through Stirling, he himself broke the pane of glass contain- 
ing them, they were remembered years afterwards to his disadvantage, and 
even danger. — As these verses have never appeared in any edition of his 
works hitherto published in Britain, we present them to our readers as a 
literary curiosity. 

Here once in triumph Stuarts reign'd, 
And laws for Scotia well ordain'd ; 
But now unroof 'd their palace stands ; 
Their sceptre's sway'd by other hands. 

The injured Stuart line is gone, 

A race outlandish fiUs the throne ; — 

An idiot race, to honour lost. 

Who know them best, despise them most. 

The young ladies of Harvieston were, according to Dr. Currie, surprised 
with the calm manner in which Burns contemplated their fine scenery on 
Devon water; and the Doctor enters into a little dissertation on the subject, 
showing that a man of Burns's lively imagination might probably have form- 
at! anticipations which the reahties of the prospect might rather disappoint. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixvti 

This is possible enough ; but I suppose few will take It for granted that 
Burns surveyed any scenes either of beauty or of grandeur without emo- 
tion, merely because he did not choose to be ecstatic for tlic benefit ot a 
company of young ladies. He was indeed very impatient of interruption 
on such occasions : riding one dark night near Carron, his companion teased 
him with noisy exclamations of delight and wonder, whenever an opening 
in the wood permitted them to see the magnificent glare of the furnaces ; 
" Look, Burns ! Good Heaven ! look ! look ! what a glorious sight !" — 
" Sir," said Burns, clapping spurs to Jenny Geddes, " I would not look / 
look ! at your bidding, if it were the mouth of hell !" 

Burns spent the month of July at Mossgiel ; and Mr. Dugald Stewart, 
in a letter to Currie, gives some recollections of him as he then appeared : 
— " Notwithstanding the various reports 1 heard during the preceding win- 
ter of Burns's predilection for convivial, and not very select society, I 
should have concluded in favour of his habits of sobriety, from all of him 
that ever fell under my own observation. He told me indeed himself, that 
the weakness of his stomach was such as to deprive him entirely of any 
merit in his temperance. I Avas, however, somewhat alarmed about the 
effect of his now comparatively sedentary and luxurious life, when he con- 
fessed to me, the first night he spent in my house after his winter's cam- 
paign in town, that he had been much disturbed when in bed, by a palpi- 
tation at his heart, which, he said, was a complaint to which he had of late 
become subject. In the course of the same season I was led by curiosity 
to attend for an hour or two a Masonic Lodge in Mauchline, where Burns 
presided. He had occasion to make some short unpremeditated com- 
pliments to different individuals from whom he had no reason to expect a 
visit, and every thing he said was happily conceived, and forcibly as well 
as fluently expressed. His manner of speaking in public had evidently the 
marks of some practice in extempore elocution." 

In August, Burns revisited Stirlingshire, in company with Dr. Adair, of 
Harrowgate, and remained ten days at Harvieston. He was received with 
particular kindness at Ochtertyre, on the Teith, by Mr. Ramsay (a friend 
of Blacklock), whose beautiful retreat he enthusiastically admired. His 
host was among the last of those old Scottish Latinists who began with Bu- 
chanan. Mr. Ramsay, among other eccentricities, had sprinkled the walls 
of his house with Latin inscriptions, some of them highly elegant ; and 
these particularly interested Burns, who asked and obtained copies and 
translations of them. This amiable man (another Monkbarns) was deeply 
read in Scottish antiquities, and the author of some learned essays on the 
elder poetry of his country. His conversation must have delighted any 
man of talents ; and Burns and he were mutually charmed with each other. 
Ramsay advised him strongly to turn his attention to the romantic drama, 
and proposed the Gentle Shepherd as a model : he also urged him to write 
Scottish GeorgicSy observing that Thomson had by no means exhausted that 
field. He appears to have relished both hints. " But," says Mr. R. " to 
have executed either plan, steadiness and abstraction from company were 
wanting." — Mr. Ramsay thus writes of Burns : — " I have been in the com- 
pany of many men of genius, some of them poets ; but I never witnessed 
such flashes of intellectual brightness as from him, the impulse of the mo- 
ment, sparks of celestial fire. I never was more delighted, therefore, than 
with his company two days tete-a-tete. In a mixed company 1 should have 
made Httle of him ; for, to use a gamester's phrase, he did not always know 



jxviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

when to play off and when to play on. When I asked him whether the 
Edinburgh literati had mended his poems by their criticisms — ' Sir,' said 
he, ' those gentlemen remind me of some spinsters in my country, who spin 
their thread so fine that it is neither fit for weft nor woof.' " 

At Clackmannan Tower, the Poet's jacobitism procured him a hearty 
welcome from the ancient lady of the place, who gloried in considering 
herself a lineal descendant of Robert Bruce. She bestowed on Burns knight- 
hood with the touch of the hero's sword ; and delighted him by giving as 
her toast after dinner, Hooki uncos, away strangers ! — a shepherd's cry 
when strange sheep mingle in the flock. At Dunfermline the poet betray- 
ed deep emotion. Dr. Adair tells us, on seeing the grave of the Bruce ; but, 
passing to another mood on entering the adjoining church, he mounted the 
pulpit, and addressed his companions, who had, at his desire, ascended the 
cuttystool, in a parody of the rebuke which he had himself undergone some 
time before at Mauchline. From Dunfermline the poet crossed the Frith of 
Forth to Edinburgh ; and forthwith set out with his friend Nicoll on a more 
extensive tour than he had as yet undertaken, or was ever again to under- 
take. Some fragments of his journal have recently been discovered, and 
are now in my hands ; so that I may hope to add some interesting particu- 
lars to the accout of Dr. Currie. The travellers hired a post-chaise for 
their expedition — the schoolmaster being, probably, no very skilful eques- 
trian. 

" August 25th, 1787. — This day," says Burns, " I leave Edinburgh for 
a tour, in company with my good friend, Mr. Nicoll, whose originality of 
humour promises me much entertainment. — Linlithgow. — A fertile im- 
proved country is West Lothian. The more elegance and luxury among 
the farmers, I always observe, in equal proportion, the rudeness and stupi- 
dity of the peasantry. This remark 1 have made all over the Lothians, 
Merse, Roxburgh, &c. ; and for this, among other reasons, I think that a 
man of romantic taste, * a man of feeling,' will be better pleased with the 
poverty, but intelligent minds of the peasantry of Ayrshire, (peasantry they 
are all, below the Justice of Peace), than the opulence of a club of Merse 
farmers, when he, at the same time, considers the Vandalism of their plough- 
folks, &c. I carry this idea so far, that an uninclosed, unimproved coun- 
try is to me actually more agreeable as a prospect, than a country culti- 
vated like a garden." 

It was hardly to be expected that Robert Burns should have estimated 
the wealth of nations on the principles of a political economist ; or that 
with him the greatest possible produce, — no matter how derived, — was to 
be the paramount principle. But, where the greatness and happiness of a 
people are concerned, perhaps the inspirations of the poet may be as safely 
taken for a guide as the inductions of the political economist : — 

From scenes like these old Scotia^s grandeur springs, 

That makes lier loved at home, revered abroad ; 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 

'•'■ An honest man's the noblest work of God !'* 
And ccrtes, in fair virtue's heav'nly road, 

The cottage leaves the palace far behind ; 
What is a lordling's pomp ! a cumbrous load. 

Disguising oft the wretch of human kind. 
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined ; 
O Scotia I my dear, my native soil ! 

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! 
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil, 

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content ! 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixix 

And, O ! may Heav'n their simple lives prevent 

From liuxury's contagion, weak and vile ! 
Then, howe'er crorcm and coronets be rent, 

A virtuonx popi/lacc may rise the while. 
And stand a wall of lire around their much-loved Isle. 

Of Linlithgow the poet says, " the town carries the appearance of rude, 
decayed, idle grandeur — charmingly rural retired situation — the old Royal 
Palace a tolerably fine but melancholy ruin — sweetly situated by the brink 
of a loch. Shown the room where the beautiful injured Mary Queen of 
Scots was born. A pretty good old Gothic church — the infamous stool of 
repentance, in the old Romish way, on a lofty situation. What a poor 
pimping business is a Presbyterian place of worship ; dirty, narrow, and 
squalid, stuck in a corner of old Popish grandeur, such as Linlithgow, and 
much more Melrose ! Ceremony and show, if judiciously thrown in, ar6 ab- 
solutely necessary for the bulk of mankind, both in religious and civil mat- 
ters " 

At Bannockburn he writes as follows : — " Here no Scot can pass unin- 
terested. I fancy to myself that I see my gallant countrymen coming over 
the hill, and down upon the plunderers of their country, the murderers of 
their fathers, noble revenge and just hate glowing in every vein, striding 
more and more eagerly as they approach the oppressive, insulting, blood- 
thirsty foe. I see them meet in glorious triumphant congratulation on the 
victorious field, exulting in their heroic royal leader, and rescued liberty 
and independence." — Here we have the germ of Burns's famous ode on the 
battle of Bannockburn. 

At Taymouth, the Journal merely has — '^ described in rhymer This al- 
ludes to the " verses written with a pencil over the mantle-piece of the 
parlour in the Inn at Kenmore ;" some of which are among his best purely 
English heroics — 

" Poetic ardours in my bosom swell, 
Lone wandering by the hermit's mossy cell ; 
The sweeping theatre of hanging woods ; 
The incessant roar of headlong-uimbling floods .... 
Here Poesy might wake her heaven-taught lyre. 
And look through nature with creative hre .... 
Here, to the wrongs of fate half reconciled, 
JMisfortune's lighten'd steps might wander wild ; 
And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds, 
Find balm to soothe her bitter rankling wounds ; 
Here heart-struck Grief might heavenward stretch her scan, 
And injured Worth forget and pardon man." 

Of Glenlyon we have this memorandum : — " Druids' temple, three cir- 
cles of stones, the outermost sunk, the second has thirteen stones remain- 
ing, the innermost eight ; two large detached ones like a gate to the south- 
east — say prayers on it." 

His notes on Dunkeld and Blair of Athole are as follows : — " Dunheld 
— Breakfast witli Dr. Stuart — Neil Gow plays ; a short, stout-built, High- 
land figure, with his greyish hair shed on his honest social brow — an inte- 
resting face, marking strong sense, kind openheartedness mixed with 

unmistrusting simphcity — visit his house — Margaret Gow Friday — 

ride up Tummel river to Blair. Fascally, a beautiful romantic nest — wild 
grandeur of the pass of Killikrankie — visit the gallant Lord Dundee's stone. 
— Blair — sup with the Duchess — easy and happy from the manners of 
that family — confirmed in my good opinion of my friend Walker Satur- 
day — visit the scenes round Blair — fine, but spoilt with bad taste." 



Ixx LIFE OF ROBERT BITRNS/ 

Mr. Walker, who, as we have seen, formed Burns's acquaintance in 
Edinburgh through Blacklock, was at this period tutor in the family of 
Athole, and from him the following particulars of Burns's reception at the 
seat of his noble patron are derived : — " On reaching Blair, he sent me no- 
tice of his arrival (as I had been previously acquainted with him), and I 
hastened to meet him at the inn. The Duke, to whom he brought a letter 
of introduction, was from home ; but the Duchess, being informed of his ar- 
rival, gave him an invitation to sup and sleep at Athole House. He ac- 
cepted the invitation ; but, as the hour of supper was at some distance, 
begged I would in the interval be his guide through the grounds. It was 
already growing dark ; yet the softened, though faint and uncertain, view 
of their beauties, which the moonlight afforded us, seemed exactly suited 
to the state of his feelings at the time. I had often, like others, experienced 
the pleasures which arise from the sublime or elegant landscape, but I ne- 
ver saw those feelings so intense as in Burns. When we reached a rustic 
hut on the river Tilt, where it is overhung by a woody precipice, from 
which there is a noble water-fall, he threw himself on the heathy seat, 
and gave himself up to a tender, abstracted, and voluptuous enthusiasm of 
imagination. It was with much difficulty I prevailed on him to quit this 
spot, and to be introduced in proper time to supper. My curiosity was 
great to see how he would conduct himself in company so different from 
what he had been accustomed to. His manner was unembarrassed, plain, 
and firm. He appeared to have complete reliance on his own native good 
sense for directing his behaviour. He seemed at once to perceive and to 
appreciate what was due to the company and to himself, and never to for- 
get a proper respect for the separate species of dignity belonging to each. 
He did not arrogate conversation, but, when led into it, he spoke with ease, 
propriety, and manliness. He tried to exert his abilities, because he knew 
it was ability alone gave him a title to be there. The Duke's fine young 
family attracted much of his admiration ; he drank their healths as ho7iest 
men and honnie lasses, an idea which was much applauded by the company, 
and with which he has very felicitously closed his poem. Next day I took 
a ride with him through some of the most romantic parts of that neigh- 
bourhood, and was highly gratified by his conversation. As a specimen 
of his happiness of conception and strength of expression, I will mention a 
remark which he made on his fellow-traveller, who was walking at the time 
a few paces before us. He was a man of a robust but clumsy person ; and 
while Burns was expressing to me the value he entertained for him, on 
account of his vigorous talents, although they were clouded at times by 
coarseness of manners ; " in short," he added, " his mind is like his body, 
he has a confounded strong in-knee'd sort of a soul." — Much attention was 
paid to Burns both before and after the Duke's return, of which he was 
perfectly sensible, without being vain ; and at his departure I recommended 
to him, as the most appropriate return he could make, to write some des- 
criptive verses on any of the scenes with which he had been so much de- 
lighted. After leaving Blair, he, by the Duke's advice, visited the Falls of 
JBruar, and in a few days I received a letter from Inverness, with the verses 
enclosed." * 

At Blair, Burns first met with Mr. Graham of Fintray, a gentleman to 
whose kindness he was afterwards indebted on more than one important 

* Extract of a letter from Mr. Walker to Mr. Cunningham, dated Perth. 24th October, 

.797. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixxi. 

occasion ; and Mr. Walker expresses great regret that he did not remain 
a day or two more, in which case he must have been introduced to Mr, 
Dundas, the first Lord Melville, who was then Treasurer of the Navy, and 
had the chief management of the affairs of Scotland. This statesman was 
but little addicted to literature ; still, had such an introduction taken 
place, he might probably have been induced to bestow that consideration 
on the claims of the poet, which, in the absence of any personal acquain- 
tance, Burns's works should have commanded at his hands. 

From Blair, Burns passed " many miles through a wild country, among 
cliffs grey with eternal snows, and gloomy savage glens, till he crossed the 
Spey ; and went down the stream through Strathspey, (so famous in Scot- 
tish music), Badenoch, &c. to Grant Castle, where he spent half a day with 
Sir James Grant ; crossed the country to Fort George, but called by the 
way at Cawdor, the ancient seat of Macbeth, where he saw the identical 
bed in which, tradition says, King Duncan was murdered ; lastly, from Fort 
George to Inverness. From Inverness, he went along the Murray Frith to 
Fochabers, taking Culloden Muir and Brodie House in his way. — Thurs- 
day, Came over Culloden Muir — reflections on the field of battle — ^break- 
fast at Kilraick — old Mrs. Rose — sterling sense, warm heart, strong pas- 
sion, honest pride — all to an uncommon degree — a true chieftain's wife, 
daughter of Clephane — Mrs. Rose junior, a little milder than the mother, 
perhaps owing to her being younger — two young ladies — Miss Rose sung 
two Gaelic songs — beautiful and lovely — Miss Sophy Brodie, not very 
beautiful, but most agreeable and amiable — both of them the gentlest, mild- 
est, sweetest creatures on earth, and happiness be with them ! Brodie 
House to lie — Mr. B. truly polite, but not quite the Highland cordiality. — 
Friday, Cross the Findhorn to Forres^ — famous stone at Forres — Mr. Bro- 
die tells me the muir where Shakspeare lays Macbeth's witch-meeting, is 
still haunted — that the country folks won't pass by night. — Elgin — vene- 
rable ruins of the abbey, a grander effect at first glance than Melrose, but 
nothing near so beautiful. — Cross Spey to Fochabers — fine palace, worthy 
of the noble, the polite, the generous proprietor — the Duke makes me hap- 
pier than ever great man did ; noble, princely, yet mild, condescending, 
and affable — gay and kind. — The Duchess charming, witty, kind, and sen- 
sible — God bless them."* 

Burns, who had been much noticed by this noble family when in Edin- 
burgh, happened to present himself at Gordon Castle, just at the dinner 
hour, and being invited to take a place at the table, did so, without for the 
moment adverting to the circumstance that his travelling companion had 
been left alone at the inn, in the adjacent village. On remembering this 
soon after dinner, he begged to be allowed to rejoin his friend ; and the 
Duke of Gordon, who now for the first time learned that he was not jour- 
neying alone, immediately proposed to send an invitation to Mr Nicoll to 
come to the Castle. His Grace's messenger found the haughty school- 
master striding up and down before the inn door, in a state of high wrath 
and indignation, at what he considered Burns's neglect, and no apologies 
could soften his mood. He had already ordered horses, and the poet find- 
ing that he must choose between the ducal circle and his irritable associ- 
ate, at once left Gordon Castle, and repaired to the inn ; whence Nicoll 
and he, in silence and mutual displeasure, pursued their journey along the 

* Extract from JournaL 



Ixxii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

coast of the Murray Frith. The abridgment of Burns's visit at Gordon 
Castle, " was not only," says Mr. Walker, " a mortifying disappointment, 
but in all probability a serious misfortune, as a longer stay among persons 
of such influence, might have begot a permanent intimacy, and on their 
parts, an active concern for his future advancement." * But this touches 
on a delicate subject, which we shall not at present pause to consider. 

Pursuing his journey along the coast, the poet visited successively 
Nairn, Forres, Aberdeen, and Stonehive ; where one of his relations, James 
Burness, writer in Montrose, met him by appointment, and conducted him 
into the circle of his paternal kindred, among whom he spent two or three 
days. When William Burness, his father, abandoned his native district, 
never to revisit it, he, as he used to tell his children, took a sorrowful fare- 
well of his brother on the summit of the last hill from which the roof of 
their lowly home could be descried ; and the old man appears to have 
ever after kept up an affectionate correspondence with his family. It fell 
to the poet's lot to communicate his father's death to the Kincardineshire 
kindred, and after that he seems to have maintained the same sort of cor- 
respondence. He now formed a personal acquaintance with these good 
people, and in a letter to his brother Gilbert, we find him describing them 
in terms which show the lively interest he took in all their concerns. * 

" The rest of my stages," says he, " are not worth rehearsing : warm 
as I was from Ossian's country, where I had seen his very grave, what 
cared I for fishing towns and fertile carses ?" He arrived once more in 
Auld Reekie, on the 16th of September, having travelled about six hun- 
dred miles in two-and-twenty days — greatly extended his acquaintance 
with his own country, and visited some of its most classical scenery — ob- 
served something of Highland manners, which must have been as interest- 
ing as they were novel to him — and strengthened considerably among the 
sturdy Jacobites of the North those political opinions which he at this pe- 
riod avowed. 

Of the few poems composed during this Highland tour, we have already 
mentioned two or three. While standing by the Fall of Fyers, near Loch 
Ness, he wrote with his pencil the vigorous couplets — 

" Among the heathy hills and rugged woods, 
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods," &c. 

When at Sir William Murray's of Ochtertyre, he celebrated Miss Murray 
pf Lintrose, commonly called " The Flower of Sutherland," in the Song — 

" Blythe, biythe, and merry was she, 
Blythe was she but and ben," &c. 

And the verses On Scaring some Wildfowl on Loch Turitf — 

" Why, ye tenants of the lake, 
For me your wat'ry haunts forsake," &c. 

were composed while under the same roof. These last, except perhaps 
Bruar Water, are the best that he added to his collection during the wan- 
derings of the summer. But in Burns's subsequent productions, we find 
many traces of the delight with which he had contemplated nature in these 
alpine regions. 

* General Correspondence. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. ixxiii 

The poet once more visited his family at Mossgiel, and Mr. Miller at 
Dalswinton, ere the winter set in ; and on more leisurely examination of 
that gentleman's estate, we find him writing as if he had all but decided 
to become his tena.nt on the farm of Elliesland. It was not, however, un- 
til he had for the third time visited Dumfriesshire, in March 1788, that a 
bargain was actually concluded. More than half of the intervening 
months were spent in Edinburgh, where Burns found, or fancied that his 
presence was necessary for the satisfactory completion of his affairs with 
the booksellers. It seems to be clear enough that one great object was the 
society of his jovial intimates in the capital. Nor was he without the 
amusement of a little romance to fill up what vacant hours they left him. 
He lodged that winter in Bristo Street, on purpose to be near a beautiful 
widow — the same to whom he addressed the song, 

" Clarinda, mistress of my soul," &c. 

and a series of prose epistles, which have been separately published, and 
which present more instances of bad taste, bombastic language, and fulsome 
sentiment, than could be produced from all his writings besides. 

At this time the publication called Johnsons Museum of Scottish Song 
was going on in Edinburgh ; and the editor appears to have early prevailed on 
Burns to give him his assistance in the arrangement of his materials. Though 
Green grow the rashes is the only song, entirely his, which appears in the 
first volume, published in 1787, many of the old ballads included in that 
volume bear traces of his hand ; but in the second volume, which appeared 
in March 1788, we find no fewer than five songs by Burns ; two that have 
been already mentioned, * and three far better than them, viz. Theniel 
Menzies bonny Mary ; that grand lyric, 

" Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, 
The wretch's destiny, 
JVIacpherson's time will not be long 
On yonder gallows tree ;" 

both of which performances bespeak the recent impresi>ions of his Highland 
visit ; and, lastly, Whistle and Vll come to you, my lad. Burns had been 
from his youth upwards an enthusiastic lover of the old minstrelsy and 
music of his country ; but he now studied both subjects with far better op- 
portunities and appliances than he could have commanded previously ; and 
it is from this time that we must date his ambition to transmit his own 
poetry to posterity, in eternal association with those exquisite airs which 
had hitherto, in far too many instances, been married to verses that did 
not deserve to be immortal. It is well known that from this time Burns 
composed very iey/ pieces but songs ; and whether we ought or not to re- 
gret that such was the case, must depend on the estimate we make of his 
songs as compared with his other poems ; a point on which critics are to this 
hour divided, and on which their descendants are not very likely to agree. 
Mr. Walker, who is one of those that lament Burns's comparative derelic- 
tion of the species of composition which he most cultivated in the early 
days of his inspiration, suggests very sensibly, that if Burns had not taken 
to song-writing, he would probably have written little or nothing amidst 
the various temptations to company and dissipation which now and hence- 
forth surrounded him — to say nothing of the active duties of life in which 

• " Clarinda," and " How pleasant the banks of the clear winding Devon." 

12 



Ixxiv LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

he was ai lengta about to be engaged. Burns was present, on the 31st of 
December, at a dinner to celebrate the birth-day of the unfortunate Prince 
Cliai-les Edward Stuart, and produced on the occasion an ode, part of which 
Dr. Currie has preserved. The specimen will not induce any regret that 
the remainder of the piece has been suppressed. It appears to be a mouth- 
ing rhapsody — far, far different indeed from the Chevaliers Lament, which 
the i)()et composed some months afterwards, with probably the tithe of 
the effort, while riding alone " through a track of melancholy muirs be- 
tween Galloway and Ayrshire, it being Sunday." * 

For six weeks of the time that Burns spent this year in Edinburgh, he 
was confined to his room, in consequence of an overturn in a hackney coach. 
*' Here I am," he writes, " under the care of a surgeon, with a bruised 
limb extended on a cushion, and the tints of my mind vying with the livid 
horrors preceding a midnight thunder-storm. A drunken coachman was 
the cause of the first, and incomparably the lightest evil ; misfortune, bodi- 
ly constitution, hell, and myself, have formed a quadruple alliance to gua- 
rantee the other. I have taken tooth and nail to the Bible, and am got 
half way through the five books of Moses, and half way in Joshua. It is 
really a glorious book. I sent for my bookbinder to-day, and ordered him 
to get an 8vo. Bible in sheets, the best paper and print in town, and bind 
it with all the elegance of his craft." f — In another letter, which opens gaily 
enough, we find him reverting to the same prevailing darkness of mood. 
" I can't say I am altogether at my ease when I see anywhere in my path 
that meagre, squalid, famine-faced spectre, Poverty, attended as he always 
is by iron-fisted Oppression, and leering Contempt. But I have sturdily 
withstood his bufietings many a hard-laboured day, and still my motto is / 
DARE. My worst enemy is moi-meme. There are just two creatures that 
I would envy — a horse in his wild state traversing the forests of Asia, or 
an oyster on some of the desert shores of Europe. The one has not a wish 
without enjoyment ; the other has neither wish nor fear." \ — One more 
specimen may be sufficient. |1 " These have been six horrible weeks. 
Anguish and low spirits have made me unfit to read, write, or think. I have 
a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer does a com- 
mission ; for I would not take in any poor ignorant wretch by selling out. 
Lately, I was a sixpenny private, and God knows a miserable soldier enough : 
now I march to the campaign a starving cadet, a little more conspicuously 
wretched. I am ashamed of all this ; for though I do not want bravery for 
the warfare of life, I coidd wish, like some other soldiers, to have as much 
fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal my cowardice." 

It seems impossible to doubt that Burns had in fact lingered in Edin- 
burgh, in the hope that, to use a vague but sufficiently expre&sive phrase, 
something would be done for him. He visited and revisited a farm, — talked 
and wrote about " having a fortune at the plough-tail," and so forth ; but 
all the while nourished, and assuredly it would have been most strange if 
he had not, the fond dream that the admiration of his country would ere 
long present Itself In some solid and tangible shape. His illness and con- 
finement gave him leisure to concentrate his imagination on the darker side \ 
of his prospects ; and the letters which we have quoted may teach those J 
who envy the powers and the fame of genius, to pause for a moment over 

* General Correspondence, No. 40. 

+ Reliques, p. 43. % Ibid. p. 44. 

II General Correspondence, No. 43. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixxv 

the annals of literature, and think what superior capabilities of misery have 
been, in the great majority of cases, interwoven with the possession of 
those very talents, from which all but their possessors derive unmingled 
gratification. Burns's distresses, however, w ere to be still farther aggravated. 
While still under the hands of his surgeon, he received intelligence from 
Mauchline that his intimacy with Jean Armour had once more exposed 
her to the reproaches of her family. The father sternly and at once turned 
her out of doors ; and Burns, unable to walk across his room, had to write 
to his friends in Mauchline to procure shelter for his children, and for her 
whom he considered as — all but his wife. In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, 
written on hearing of this new misfortune, he says, " ' / wish I ivere dead, 
but Tm no like to die.' I fear I am something like — undone ; but I hope for 
the best. You must not desert me. Your friendship I think I can count 
on, though I should date my letters from a marching regiment. Early in 
life, and all my life, I reckoned on a recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Se- 
riously, though, life at present presents me with but a melancholy path • 

But my limb will soon be sound, and I shall struggle onJ' * 

Jt seems to have been now that Burns at last screwed up his courage to 
solicit the active interference in his behalf of the Earl of Glencairn. The 
letter is a brief one. Burns could ill endure this novel attitude, and he 
rushed at once to his request. " I wish," says he, " to get into the excise. 
I am told your Lordship will easily procure me the grant from the com- 
raissioners ; and your lordship's patronage and kindness, which have already 
rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness, and exile, embolden me to ask 
that interest. You have likewise put it in my power to save the little tie 
of home, that sheltered an aged mother, two brothers, and three sisters 
from destruction. There, my lord, you have bound me over to the highest 

gratitude My heart sinks within me at the idea of applying to any 

other of The Great who have honoured me with their countenance. I am 
ill qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of solicita- 
tion ; and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as of 
the cold denial." -j- It would be hard to think that this letter was coldly or 
negligently received ; on the contrary, we know that Burns's gratitude to 
Lord Glencairn lasted as long as his life. But the excise a{)pointment 
which he coveted was not procured by any exertion of his noble patron's 
influence. Mr. Alexander Wood, surgeon, (still affectionately remembered 
in Edinburgh as " kind old Sandy Wood,") happening to hear Burns, while 
his patient, mention the object of his wishes, went immediately, without 
dropping any hint of his intention, and communicated the state of the 
poet's case to Mr. Graham of Fintray, one of the commissioners of excise, 
who had met Burns at the Duke of Athole's in the autunm, and who im- 
mediately had the poet's name put on the roll. — " I have chosen this, my 
dear friend," (thus wrote Burns to Mrs. Dunlop), " after mature delibera- 
tion. The question is not at what door of Fortune's palace shall we enter 
in ; but what doors does she open to us ? I was not likely to get any thing 
to do. I wanted un but, which is a dangerous, an unhappy situation. I got 
this w ithout any hanging on or mortifying solicitation. It is immediate 
bread, and, though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months of my 
existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all my preceding life. Besides, the 
commissioners are some of them my acquaintances, and all of them my 
firm friends." | 

* Reliques, p. 48. t General Correspondence, No. 40. + Reliqucs, p. 60, 



Ixxvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Our poet seems to have kept up an angry correspondence during his con- 
finement with his bookseller, Mr. Creech, whom he also abuses very heartily 
in his letters to his friends in Ayrshire. The publisher's accounts, however, 
when they were at last made up, must have given the impatient author a 
very agreeable surprise ; for, in his letter above quoted, to Lord Glencairn, 
we find him expressing his hopes that the gross profits of his book might 
amount to " better than £200," whereas, on the day of settling with Mr. 
Creech, he found himself in possession of £500, if not of £600. Mr. Ni- 
coll, the most intimate friend Burns had, writes to Mr John Lewars, ex- 
cise officer at Dumfries, immediately on hearing of the poet's death, — '* He 
certainly told me that he received £600 for the first Edinburgh edition, and 
£100 afterwards for the copyright." — Dr. Currie states the gross product 
of Creech's edition at £300, and Burns himself, in one of his printed let- 
ters, at £400 only. Nicoll hints, in the letter already referred to, that 
Burns had contracted debts while in Edinburgh, which he might not wish 
to avow on all occasions ; and if we are to believe this — and, as is probable, 
the expense of printing the subscription edition, should, moreover, be de- 
ducted from the £700 stated by Mr. Nicoll — the apparent contradictions 
in these stories may be pretty nearly reconciled. There appears to be 
reason for thinking that Creech subsequently paid more than £100 for the 
copyright. If he did not, how came Burns to realize, as Currie states it 
at the end of his Memoir, " nearly £900 in all by his poems?" 

This supply came truly in the hour of need ; and it seems to have ele- 
vated his spirits greatly, and given him for the time a new stock of confi- 
dence ; for he now resumed immediately his purpose of taking Mr. Millej^'s 
farm, retaining his excise commission in his pocket as a dernier resort, to be 
made use of only should some reverse of fortune come upon him. His first 
act, however, was to relieve his brother from his difficulties, by advancing 
£180 or £200, to assist him in the management of Mossgiel. " I give my- 
self no airs on this," he generously says, in a letter to Dr. Moore, " for it 
was mere selfishness on my part. I was conscious that the wrong scale of 
the balance was pretty heavily charged, and 1 thought that the throwing a 
little filial piety and fraternal affection into the scale in my favour, might 
help to smooth matters at the grand reckoning" * 

• General Correspondence,.^ No. 66. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Contents. — Marries —~ Announcements, fapologeticalj, of the event — Remarks — Becomes 
(1788) Farmer at Elliesland, on the Nith, in a romantic vicinity, six miles from Dumfries — 
The Muse wakeful as ever, while the Poet maintains a varied and extensive literary corre- 
spondence with all and sundry — Remarks upon the correspondence — Sketch of his person 
and habits at this period by a brother poet, who shotos cause against success in farming — 
The untoward conjunction of Ganger to Farmer — The notice of the squirearchy, and the 
calls of admiring visitors, lead too uniformly to the ultra convivial life — Leaves Elliesland 
(1791) to be exciseman in the town of Dumfries, 



** To make a happy fireside clime 
For weans and wife — 
That's the true pathos and sublime 
Of human life." 

Burns, as soon as his bruised limb was able for a journey, went to Moss- 
giel, and went through the ceremony of a Justice-of- Peace marriage with 
Jean Armour, in the writing-chambers of his friend Gavin Hamilton. He 
then crossed the country to Dalswinton, and concluded his bargain with 
Mr. Miller as to the farm of Elliesland, on terms which must undoubtedly 
have been considered by both parties, as highly favourable to the poet ; 
they were indeed fixed by two of Burns's own friends, who accompanied 
him for that purpose from Ayrshire. The lease was for four successive 
terms, of nineteen years each, — in all seventy- six years ; the rent for the 
first three years and crops £50 ; during the remainder of the period £70 
per annum. Mr. Miller bound himself to defray the expense of any plan- 
tations which Burns might please to make on the banks of the river ; and, 
the farm-house and offices being in a delapidated condition, the new tenant 
was to receive £300 from the proprietor, for the erection of suitable build- 
ings. Burns entered on possession of his farm at Whitsuntide 1788, but 
the necessary rebuilding of the house prevented his removing Mrs. Burns 
thither until the season was far advanced. He had, moreover, to qualify 
himself for holding his excise commission by six weeks' attendance on the 
business of that profession at Ayr. From these circumstances, he led all 
the summer a wandering and unsettled life, and Dr. Currie mentions this 
as one of his chief misfortunes. The poet, as he says, was continually rid- 
ing between Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire, and often spending a night on 
the road, " sometimes fell into company, and forgot the resolutions he had 
formed." What these resolutions were, the poet himself shall tell us. On 
the third day of his residence at ElHesland, he thus writes to Mr. Ainslie : 
— " I have all along hitherto, in the warfare of life, been bred to arms, 
among the light-horse, the piquet guards of fancy, a kind of hussars and 
Highlanders of the brain ; but I am firmly resolved to sell out of these giddy 
battalions. Cost what it will, I am determined to buy in among the grave 
squadrons of heavy-armed thought; or the artillery corps of plodding con 



Ixxviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

trivance. . . . Were it not for the terrors of my ticklish situation re- 
specting a family of children, I am decidedly of opinion that the step 1 have 
taken is vastly for my happiness." * 

To all his friends he expresses himself in terms of similar satisfaction in 
regard to his marriage. " Your surmise, Madam," he writes to Mrs. Dun- 
lop, " is just. I am indeed a husband. I found a once much-loved, and 
still much-loved female, literally and truly cast out to the mercy of the 
naked elements, but as I enabled her to purchase a shelter ; and there is no 
sporting with a fellow-creature's happiness or misery. The most placid 
goodnature and sweetness of disposition ; a warm heart, gratefully devoted 
with all its powers to love me ; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, 
set off to the best advantage by a more than commonly handsome figure ; 
these, I think, in a woman, may make a good wife, though she should ne- 
ver have read a page but the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, 

nor danced in a brighter assembly than a penny-pay wedding 

To jealousy or infidelity I am an equal stranger ; my preservative from the 
first, is the most thorough consciousness of her sentiments of honour, and 
her attachment to me ; my antidote against the last, is my long and deep- 
rooted affection for her. In housewife matters, of aptness to learn, and 
activity to execute, she is eminently mistress, and during my absence in 
Nithsdale, she is regularly and constantly an apprentice to my mother and 

sisters in their dairy, and other rural business You are right, 

that a bachelor state would have ensured me more friends ; but from a 
cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoyment of my own 
mind, and unmistrusting confidence in approaching my God, would seldom 
have been of the number." f 

Some months later he tells Miss Chalmers that his marriage " was not, 
perhaps, in consequence of the attachment of romance," — (he is addressing 
a young lady), — " but," he continues, " I have no cause to repent it. If 
I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not 
sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affec- 
tation ; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the 
soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the country. Mrs. Burns 
believes as firmly as her creed, that I am le plus bel esprit et leplus honnete 
homme in the universe ; although she scarcely ever, in her life, except the 
Scriptures and the Psalms of David in Metre, spent five minutes together 
on either prose or verse — I must except also a certain late publication of 
Scots poems, which she has perused very devoutly, and all the ballads of 
the country, as she has (O the partial lover, you will say), the finest 
woodnote-wild I ever heard." — It was during this honeymoon, as he calls 
it, while chiefly resident in a miserable hovel at Elliesland, J and only 
occasionally spending a day or two in Ayrshire, that he wrote the beautiful 
song : II 

'' Of a' the airts the wind can blaw I dearly like the west, 
For there the bonnie lassie lives, the lassie I lo'e best; 
There wildwoods grow, and rivers row, and niony a hill between ; 
But day and night my fancy's flight is ever wi' my Jean. 

O blaw, ye westlin winds, blaw saft amang the leafy trees, 
Wi' gentle gale, frae muir and dale, bring hame the laden bees, 
And biing the lassie back to me, that's aye sae neat and clean;; 
Ae blink o' her wad banish care, sae lovely is my Jean." 

• Reliques, p. 63. + See General Correspondence, No. 53 : and Reliques, r, 60r 

X Reliques, p. 75. . |1 Ibid. p. 273. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixxix 

One of Burns's letters, written not long after this, contains a passage strong- 
ly marked with his haughtiness of character. *' I have escaped," says he, 
" the fantastic caprice, the apish affectation, with all the other blessed 
boarding-school acquirements which are sometimes to be found among fe- 
males of the upper ranks, but almost universally pervade the misses of the 
would-be gentry."* 

" A discerning reader," says Mr. Walker, " will perceive that the let- 
ters in which he announces his marriage to some of his most respected cor- 
respondents, are written in that state when the mind is pained by reflect- 
ing on an unwelcome step, and finds relief to itself in seeking arguments 
to justify the deed, and lessen its disadvantages in the opinion of others." f 
I confess I am not able to discern any traces of this kind of feeling in any 
of Burns's letters on this interesting and important occasion. The Rev. 
Hamilton Paul takes an original view of this business : — " Much praise," 
says he, " has been lavished on Burns for renewing his engagement with 
Jean when in the blaze of his fame. . . The praise is misplaced. We 
do not think a man entitled to credit or commendation for doing what the 
law could compel him to perform. Burns was in reality a married man, 
and it is truly ludicrous to hear him, aware as he must have been, of the in- 
dissoluble power of the obligation, though every document was destroyed, 
talking of himself as a bachelor." :j: There is no justice in these remarks. 
It is very true, that, by a merciful fiction of the law of Scotland, the fe- 
male, in Miss Armour's condition, who produces a written promise of mar- 
riage, is considered as having furnished evidence of an irregular marriage 
having taken place between her and her lover ; but in this case the female 
herself had destroyed the document, and lived for many months not only 
not assuming, but rejecting the character of Burns's wife ; and had she, un- 
der such circumstances, attempted to establish a marriage, with no docu- 
ment in her hand, and with no parole evidence to show that any such do- 
cument had ever existed, to say nothing of proving its exact tenor, but 
that of her own father, it is clear that no ecclesiastical court in the world 
could have failed to decide against her. So far from Burns's having all 
along regarded her as his wife, it is extremely doubtful whether she had 
ever for one moment considered him as actually her husband, until he de- 
clared the marriage of 1788. Burns did no more than justice as well as 
honour demanded ; but the act was one which no human tribunal could 
have compelled him to perform. 

To return to our story. Burns complains sadly of his solitary condition, 
when living in the only hovel that he found extant on his farm. " I am," 
says he, (September 9th) " busy with my harvest, but for all that most 
pleasurable part of life called social intercourse, I am here at the very el- 
bow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country in 
any degree of perfection, are stupidity and canting. Prose they only know 
in graces, &c., and the value of these they estimate as they do their plaid- 
ing webs, by the ell. As for the muses, they have as much idea of a rhino- 
ceros as of a poet." And in another letter (September 16th) he says, 
" This hovel that I shelter in while occasionally here, is pervious to every 
blast that blows, and every shower that falls, and I am only preserved 
from being chilled to death by being suffocated by smoke. You will be 
pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle edatj and bind every day after 

• General Correspondence, No. 55. i* Morrison, vol, i. p. Ixxxvii. 

X Paul's Life of I5urns, p. 45. ; 



Ixxx LITE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

my reapers." His house, however, did not take much time in building ; 
nor had he reason to complain of want of society long. He brought his 
wife home to Elliesland about the end of November ; and few housekeepers 
start with a larger provision of young mouths to feed than this couple. Mrs. 
Burns had lain in this autumn, for the second time, of twins, and I sup- 
pose " sonsy, smirking, dear-bought Bess,"* accompanied her younger bro- 
thers and sisters from Mossgiel. From that quarter also Burns brought a 
whole establishment of servants, male and female, who, of course, as was 
then the universal custom amongst the small farmers, both of the west and 
of the south of Scotland, partook, at the same table, of the same fare with 
their master and mistress. 

Elliesland is beautifully situated on the banks of the Nith, about six miles 
above Dumfries, exactly opposite to the house of Dalswinton, of those noble 
woods and gardens amidst which Burns's landlord, the ingenious Mr. Pa- 
trick Miller, found relaxation from the scientific studies and researches in 
which he so greatly excelled. On the Dalswinton side, the river washes 
lawns and groves ; but over against these the bank rises into a long red 
scaur, of considerable height, along the verge of which, where the bare 
shingle of the precipice all but overhangs the stream, Burns had his favou- 
rite walk, and might now be seen striding alone, early and late, especially 
when the winds were loud, and the waters below him swollen and turbu- 
lent. For he was one of those that enjoy nature most in the more serious 
and severe of her aspects ; and throughout his poetry, for one allusion 
to the liveliness of spring, or the splendour of summer, it would be easy 
to point out twenty in which he records the solemn delight with which he 
contemplated the melancholy grandeur of autumn, or the savage gloom of 
winter ; and he has himself told us, that it was his custom " to take a 
gloamin' shot at the muses." 

The poet was accustomed to say, that the most happy period of his life 
was the first winter he spent at Elliesland, — for the first time under a roof 
of his own— with his wife and children about him — and in spite of oc- 
casional lapses into the melancholy which had haunted his youth, looking 
forward to a life of well-regulated, and not ill-rewarded, industry. It is 
known that he welcomed his wife to her rooftree at Elliesland in the song, 

" I hae a wife o' mine ain, I'll partake wi' naebody ; 
I'll tak cuckold frae nane, I'll gie cuckold to naebody ; 
1 hae a penny to spend — there— thanks to naebody ; 
1 hae naething to lend — I'll borrow frae naebody." 

In commenting on this " little lively lucky song," as he well calls it, Mr. A. 
Cunningham says, " Burns had built his house, he had committed his 
seed-corn to the ground, he was in the prime, nay the morning of life — 
health, and strength, and agricultural skill were on his side — -his genius 
had been acknowledged by his country, and rewarded by a subscription, 
more extensive than any Scottish poet ever received before ; no wonder, 
therefore, that he broke out into voluntary song, expressive of his sense of 
importance and independence." 

Burns, in his letters of the year 1789, makes many apologies for doing 
but little in his poetical vocation ; his farm, without doubt, occupied much 
of his attention, but the want of social intercourse, of which he complained 
on his first arrival in Nithsdale, had by this time totally disappeared. On 

• Poetical Inventory to Mr. Aiken, February 178&: 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixxxi 

the contrary, his company was courted eagerly, not only by his brother- 
farmers, but by the neighbouring gentry of all classes ; and now, too, for 
the first time, he began to be visited continually in his own house by curi- 
ous travellers of all sorts, who did not consider, any more than the gene- 
rous poet himself, that an extensive practice of hospitality must cost more 
time than he ought to have had, and far more money than he ever had, at 
his disposal. Meantime, he was not wholly regardless of the muses ; for 
in addition to some pieces which we have already had occasion to notice, 
he contributed to this year's INIuseum, Tlie Thames Jtows proudly to tJie 
Sea ; The lazy mist hangs, B)C. ; The day returns, my bosom barns ; Tarn 
Glen, (one of the best of his humorous songs) ; the splendid lyric, Go 
fetch to me a pint of urine, and My heart's in the Hielands, (in both of which, 
however, he adopted some lines of ancient songs to the same tunes) ; John 
Anderson, in part also a rifacciamento ; the best of all his Bacchanalian 
pieces, Willie breived a pech o maut, written in celebration of a festive meet- 
ing at the country residence, in Dumfriesshire, of his friend Mr. Nicoll of 
the High School ; and lastly, that noblest of all his ballads. To Mary in 
Heaven. This celebrated poem was, it is on all hands admitted, composed 
by Burns in September 1789, on the anniversary of the day on which he 
heard of the death of his early love, Mary Campbell ; but Mr. Cromek 
has thought fit to dress up the story with circumstances which did not oc- 
cur. Mrs. Burns, the only person who could appeal to personal recollec- 
tion on this occasion, and whose recollections of all circumstances con- 
nected with the history of her liusband's poems, are represented as being 
remarkably distinct and vivid, gives what may at first appear a more pro- 
saic edition of the history. * According to her, Burns spent that day, 
though labouring under cold, in the usual work of his harvest, and appa- 
rently in excellent spirits. But as the twilight deepened, he appeared to 
grow " very sad about something," and at length wandered out into the 
barn-yard, to which his wife, in her anxiety for his health, followed him, 
entreating him in vain to observe that frost had set in, and to return 
to the fireside. On being again and again requested to do so, he always 
promised compliance — but still remained where he was, striding up and 
down slowly, and contemplating the sky, which was singularly clear and 
starry. At last Mrs. Burns found him stretched on a mass of straw, with 
his eyes fixed on a beautiful planet " that shone like another moon ;" and 
prevailed on him to come in. He immediately on entering the house, called 
for his desk, and wrote exactly as they now stand, with all the ease of one 
copying from memory, the sublime and pathetic verses— 

" Thou lingering star with lessening ray. 

That lovest to greet the early morn, < 

Again thou usher'st in the tlay 
Aly Mary from my soul was torn. 
•' O I\lary, dear departed shade, 

, Where is tliy place of blissful rest ; 

, See'st thou thy lover lowly laid, 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ?" &c. 

The Mothers Lament for her Son, and Inscription in an Hermitage in 
Nithsdale, were also written this year. From the time when Burns settled 
himself in Dumfriesshire, he appears to have conducted with much care 
the extensive correspondence in which his celebrity had engaged him. The 

* I owe these particulars to Mx. IM'Diarmid, the able editor of the Dumfries Courier, and 
brother of the lamented author of *' Lives of British Statesmen." 

13 



Ixxxli LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

letters that passed between him and his brother Gilbert, are among the 
most precious of the collection. That the brothers had entire knowledge 
of and confidence in each other, no one can doubt ; and the plain manly 
affectionate language in which they both write, is truly honourable to them, 
and to the parents that reared them. " Dear Brother," writes Gilbert, 
January 1st, 1789, " I have just finished my new-year's-day breakfast in 
the usual form, which naturally makes me call to mind the days of former 
years, and the society in which we used to begin them ; and when I look 
at our family vicissitudes, ' through the dark postern of time long elapsed,' 
J cannot help remarking to you, my dear brother, how good the God of 
seasons is to us ; and that, however some clouds may seem to lour over 
the portion of time before us, we have great reason to hope that all will 
turn out well." 

It was on the same new-year's-day that Burns himself addressed to Mrs. 
Dunlop a letter, part of which is here transcribed. It is dated Elliesland, 
New-year-day morning, 1789, and certainly cannot be read too often : — ■ 
" This, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to God that I 
came under the apostle James's description! — tlie prayer of a righteous man 
availeth much. In that case, madam, you should welcome in a year full of 
blessings ; every thing that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoy- 
ment, should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste, 
should be yours. I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve of 
set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion, for breaking 
in on that habituated routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce 
our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, 
to a state very little superior to mere machinery. This day, — the first 
Sunday of May, — a breezy, blue-skyed moon sometime about the begin- 
ning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end of autumn ; 
these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holiday. 

" I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator, < The 
Vision of Mirza ;' a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable 
of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables : ' On the 3th day of the moon, 
which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy^ after 
having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended 
the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation 
and prayer.' We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or 
structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in 
them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck 
with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary im- 
pression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the 
mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild brier-rose, the bud- 
ding-birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with par- 
ticular delight. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a 
summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plover, in an 
autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm 
of devotion or poetr3^ Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be ow- 
ing ? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the iEolian harp, passive, 
takes the impression of the passing accident ? Or do these workings argue 
something within us above the trodden clod ? I own myself partial to such 
proofs of those awful and important realities — a God that made all things 
-^ — man's immaterial and immortal nature — and a world of weal or woe be- 
yond death and the grave." 



r 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixxxiii 

Few, it is to be hoped, can read sucb things as these without dehght ; 
none, surely, that taste the elevated pleasure they are calculated to in- 
spire, can turn from them to the well-known issue of Burns's history, with- 
out being afflicted. The " golden days" of Elliesland, as Dr. Currie justly 
calls them, were not destined to be many. Burns's farming speculations 
once more failed ; and he himself seems to have been aware that such was 
likely to be the case ere he had given the business many months' trial ; for, 
ere the autumn of 1788 was over, he applied to his patron, Mr. Graham of 
Fintray, for actual employment as an exciseman, and was accordingly ap- 
pointed to do duty, in that capacity, in the district where his lands were 
situated. His income, as a revenue officer, was at first only ,€35 ; it by 
and by rose to c€50 ; and sometimes was £70. These pounds were hardly 
earned, since the duties of his new calling necessarily withdrew him very 
often from the farm, which needed his utmost attention, and exposed him, 
which was still worse, to innumerable temptations of the kind he was least 
likely to resist. 

I have now the satisfaction of presenting the reader with some particu- 
lars of this part of Burns's history, derived from a source which every 
lover of Scotland and Scottish poetry must be prepared to hear mentioned 
with respect. It happened that at the time when our poet went to Niths- 
dale, the father of Mr. Allan Cunningham was steward on the estate of 
Dalswinton : he was, as all who have read the writings of his sons will 
readily believe, a man of remarkable talents and attainments : he was a 
wise and good man ; a devout admirer of Burns's genius ; and one of those 
sober neighbours who in vain strove, by advice and warning, to arrest the 
poet in the downhill path, towards which a thousand seductions were per- 
petually drawing him. Mr. Allan Cunningham was, of course, almost a 
child when he first saw Burns ; but, in what he has to say on this subject, 
we may be sure we are hearing the substance of his benevolent and saga- 
cious father's observations and reflections. His own boyish recollections 
of the poet's personal appearance and demeanour will, however, be read 
with interest. '^ I was very young," says Allan Cunningham, " when I 
first saw Burns. He came to see my father ; and their conversation turned 
partly on farming, partly on poetry, in both of which my father had taste 
and skill. Burns had just come to Nithsdale ; and I think he appeared a 
shade more swarthy than he does in Nasmyth's picture, and at least ten years 
older than he really was at the time. His face was deeply marked by 
thought, and the habitual expression intensely melancholy. His frame was 
very muscular and well proportioned, though he had a short neck, and 
something of a ploughman's stoop : he was strong, and proud of his strength. 
r saw him one evening match himself with a number of masons ; and out 
of five-and-twenty practised hands, the most vigorous young men in the 
parish, there was only one that could lift the same weight as Burns. He 
had a very manly face, and a very melancholy look ; but on the coming of 
those he esteemed, his looks brightened up, and his whole face beamed 
with affection and genius. His voice was very musical. I once heard 
him read Tarn o Shunter. I think I hear him now. His fine manly voice 
followed all the undulations of the sense, and expressed as well as his ge- 
nius had done, the pathos and humour, the horrible and the awful, of that 
wonderful performance. As a man feels, so will he write ; and in pro])or- 
tion as he sympathizes with )n*s author, so will he read him with grace and 
effect. 



Ixxxlv LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

" I said that Burns and my fatlier conversed about poetry and farming. 
The poet had newly taken possession of his farm of ElUesland, — the masons 
were busy building his house, — the applause of the world was with him, 
and a little of its moneys in his pocket, — in short, he had found a resting- 
place at last. He spoke with great delight about the excellence of his 
farm, and particularly about the beauty of the situation. * Yes,',Jiiy father 
said, ' the walks on the river bank are fine, and you will see from your win- 
dows some miles of the Nith ; but you will also see several farms of fine 
ricli holm, * any one of which you might have had. You have made a 
poet's choice, rather than a farmer's.' If Burns had much of a farmer's 
skill, he had little of a farmer's prudence and economy. I once inquired 
of James Corrie, a sagacious old farmer, whose ground marched with EUies- 
land, the cause of the poet's faiku-e. ' Faith,' said he, ' how could he miss 
but fail, when his servants ate the bread as fast as it was baked ? I don't 
mean figuratively, I mean literally. Consider a little. At that time close 
economy was necessary to have enabled a man to clear twenty pounds a- 
year by Elliesland. Now, Burns's own handy work was out of the ques- 
tion : he neither ploughed, nor sov» ed, nor reaped, at least like a hard- 
working farmer ; and then he had a bevy of servants from Ayrshire. The 
lasses did nothing but bake bread, and the lads sat by the fireside, and ate 
it warm with ale. Waste of time and consumption of food would soon 
reach to twenty pounds a-year.' " 

" The truth of the case," says Mr. Cunningham, in another letter with 
which he has favoured me, " the truth is, that if Robert Burns liked his 
farm, it was more for the beauty of the situation than for the labours which 
it demanded. He was too wayward to attend to the stated duties of a 
husbandman, and too impatient to wait till the ground returned in gain the 
cultivation he bestowed upon it. The condition of a farmer, a Nithsdale 
one, I mean, was then very humble. His one-story house had a covering 
of straw, and a clay floor; the flu'niture was from the hands of a country 
carpenter ; and, between the roof and floor, there seldom intervened a 
smoother ceiling than of rough rods and grassy turf — while a huge lang-settle 
of black oak for himself, and a carved arm-chair for his wife, were the only 
matters out of keeping with the homely looks of his residence. He took 
all his meals in his own kitchen, and presided regularly among his children 
and domestics. He performed family worship every evening — except dur- 
ing the hurry of harvest, when that duty was perhaps limited to Saturday 
night. A few religious books, two or three favourite poets, the history of 
his country, and his Bible, aided him in forming the minds and manners of 
the family. To domestic education, Scotland owes as much as to the care 
of her clergy, and the excellence of her parish schools. 

" The picture out of doors was less interesting. The ground from which 
the farmer sought support, was generally in a very moderate state of culti- 
vation. The implements with which he tilled his land were primitive and 
clumsy, and his own knowledge of the management of crops exceedingly 
limited. He plodded on in the regular slothful routine of his ancestors ; 
he rooted out no bushes, he dug up no stones ; he drained not, neither did 
he enclose ; and weeds obtained their full share of the dung and the lime, 
which he bestowed more like a medicine than a meal on his soil. His 
plough was the rude old Scotch one ; his harrows had as often teeth of 

* Holm is flat, rich meadow land, intervening between a ^itream and the general elevation 
of tlie adjoining country. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixxxv 

wood as of iron ; his carts vv'ere heavy and low- wheeled, or wero, more 
properly speaking, tumbler-carts, so called to distinguish them from trail- 
carts, both of which were in common use. On these rude carriages Jiis 
manure was taken to the field, and his crop brought liome. The I'armer 
liimself corresponded in all respects with his imperfect instruments. His 
poverty secured him from risking costly experiments ; and his hatred of 
innovation made him entrench himself behind a breast- work of old maxims 
and rustic saws, which he interpreted as oracles delivered against wtprove- 
went. With ground in such condition, with tools so unfit, and with knou- 
ledge so imperfect, lie sometimes succeeded in wringing a icw hundred 
pounds Scotii from the farm he occupied. Such was generally the state of 
agriculture when Burns came to Nitlisdale. I know not how far his own 
skill was equal to the task of improvement — his trial was short and unfor- 
tunate. An important cliange soon took place, by which he was not fated 
to profit ; he had not the foresiglit to see its approach, nor, probably, the 
fortitude to await its coming. 

" In the year 1790, much of the ground in Nithsdale was leased at seven, 
and ten, and fifteen shillings per acre ; and the farmer, in his person and 
liis house, differed little from the peasants and mechanics around him. He 
would have thought his daughter wedded in her degree, had she married a 
joiner or a mason ; and at kirk or market, all men beneath the rank of a 
" portioner" of the soil mingled together, equals in appearance and impor- 
tance. But the war which soon commenced, gave a decided impulse to 
agriculture : the army and navy consumed largely ; corn rose in demand ; 
the price augmented ; more land was called into cultivation ; and, as leases 
expired, the proprietors improved the grounds, built better houses, enlarg- 
ed the rents ; and the farmer was soon borne on the wings of sudden wealth 
above his original condition. His house obtained a slated roof, sash-windows, 
carpeted floors, plastered walls, and even began to exchange the hanks of 
yarn with which it was formerly hung, for paintings and pianofortes. He 
laid aside his coat of home-made cloth ; he retired from his seat among his 
servants ; he — I am grieved to mention it — gave up family worship as a 
thing unfashionable, and became a kind of rustic gentleman^ who rode a blood 
horse, and galloped home on market nights at the peril of his own neck, and 
to the terror of every modest pedestrian. When a change like this took 
place, and a farmer could, with a dozen years' industry, be able to purchase 
the land he rented — which many were, and many did — the same, or a still 
more profitable change might have happened with respect to Elliesland ; 
and Burns, had he stuck by his lease and his i)lough, would, in all human 
possibility, have found the independence which he sought, and sought in 
vain, from the coldness and parsimony of mankind." 

Mr. Cunningham sums up his reminiscences of Burns at Elliesland in 
these terms : — " During the prosperity of his farm, my father often said 
that Burns conducted himself wisely, and like one anxious for his name as 
a man, and his fame as a poet. He went to Dunscore Kirk on Sunday, 
though he expressed oftener than once his dislike to the stern Calvinism of 
that strict old divine, Mr. Kirkpatrick ; — he assisted in forming a reading 
club ; and at weddings and house-heatings, and kirns, and other scenes of fes- 
tivity, he was a welcome guest, universally liked by the young and the old. 
But the failure of his farming projects, and the limited income with which 
he was compelled to support an increasing family and an expensive station 
in life; preyed on Iiis spirits ; and, during these fits of despair, he was will- 



Ixxxvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

ing too often to become the companion of the thoughtless and the gross. I 
am grieved to say, tliat besides leaving the book too much for the bowl, 
and grave and wise friends for lewd and reckless companions, he was also 
in the occasional practice of composing songs, in which he surpassed the 
licentiousness, as well as the wit and humour, of the old Scottish muse. 
These have unfortunately found their way to the press, and I am afraid 
they cannot be recalled. In conclusion, I may say, that iew men have had 
so much of the poet about them, and few poets so much of the man ; — the 
man was probably less pure than he ought to have been, but the poet was 
pure and bright to the last." 

The reader must be sufficiently prepared to hear, that from the time 
when he entered on his excise duties, the poet more and more neglected 
the concerns of his farm. Occasionally, he might be seen holding the 
plough, an exercise in which he excelled, and was proud of excelling, or 
stalking down his furrows, with the white sheet of grain wrapt about him, 
a " tenty seedsman ;" but he was more commonly occupied in far different 
pursuits. " I am now," says he, in one of his letters, " a poor rascally 
ganger, condemned to gallop two hundred miles every week, to inspect 
dirty ponds and yeasty barrels." Both in verse and in prose he has recorded 
the feelings with which he first followed his new vocation. His jests on 
the subject are uniformly bitter. " I have the same consolation," he tells 
Mr Ainslie, " which I once heard a recruiting sergeant give to his audi- 
ence in the streets of Kilmarnock : * Gentlemen, for your farther encourage- 
ment, I can assure you that ours is the most blackguard corps under the 
crown, and, consequently, with us an honest fellow has the surest chance 
of preferment.' " On one occasion, however, he takes a higher tone. " There 
is a certain stigma," says he to Bishop Geddes, " in the name of Excise- 
man ; but I do not intend to borrow honour from any profession :" — which 
may perhaps remind the reader of Gibbon's lofty language, on finally quit- 
ting the learned and polished circles of London and Paris, for his Swiss re- 
tirement : " I am too modest, or too proud, to rate my value by that o£ 
my associates." 

Burns, in his perpetual perambulations over the moors of Dumfriesshire, 
had every temptation to encounter, which bodily fatigue, the blandishments 
of hosts and hostesses, and the habitual manners of those who acted along 
with him in the duties of the excise, could present. He was, moreover, 
wherever he went, exposed to perils of his own, by the reputation which 
he had earned as a poet, and by his extraordinary powers of entertainment 
in conversation. From the castle to the cottage, every door flew open at 
his approach ; and the old system of hospitality, then flourishing, rendered 
it difficult for the most soberly inclined guest to rise from any man's board 
in the same trim that he sat down to it. The farmer, if Burns was seen 
passing, left his reapers, and trotted by the side of Jenny Geddes, until 
he could persuade the bard that the day was hot enough to demand an 
extra-libation. If he entered an inn at midnight, after all the inmates 
were in bed, the news of his arrival circulated from the cellar to the garret; 
and ere ten minutes had elapsed, the landlord and all his guests were as- 
sembled round the ingle ; the largest punch-bowl was produced ; and 

" Be ours this night — who knows what conies to-morrow ?" 

was the language of every eye in the circle that welcomed him. The 
stateliest gentry of the county, whenever they had especial merriment in 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixxxvii 

view, called in the wit and eloquence of Burns to enliven their carousals.* 
'Hie famous song of The IVJustle of worth commemorates a scene of this 
kind, more picturesque in some of its circumstances than every day oc- 
curred, yet strictly in character with the usual tenor of life among this jo- 
vial squirearchy. Three gentlemen of ancient descent, had met to deter- 
mine, by a solenm drinking match, who should possess the Whistle^ which 
a common ancestor of them all had earned ages before, in a Bacchanalian 
contest of the same sort with a noble toper from Denmark ; and the poet 
was summoned to watch over and celebrate the issue of the debate. 

" Then up rose the bard like a prophet in drink, 
Craigdarroch shall soar when creation shall sink ; 
But if tliou would'st flourish immortal in rhyme. 
Come, one bottle more, and have at the subume." 

Nor, as has already been hinted, was he safe from temptations of this kind, 
even when he was at home, and most disposed to enjoy in quiet the socie- 
ty of his wife and children. Lion-gazers from all quarters beset him ; they 
ate and drank at his cost, and often went away to criticise him and his 
fare, as if they had done Burns and his black bowl f great honour in con- 
descending to be entertained for a single evening, with such company and 
such liquor. 

We have on record various glimpses of him, as he appeared while he 
was half-farmer, half-exciseman ; and some of these present him in atti- 
tudes and aspects, on which it would be pleasing to dwell. For example, 
tlie circumstances under which the verses on TJie wounded Hare were 
written, are mentioned generally by the poet himself. James Thomson, 
son of the occupier of a farm adjoining Elliesland, told Allan Cunningham, 
that it was he who wounded the animal. " Burns," said this person, " was 
in the custom, when at home, of strolling by himself in the twilight every 
evening, along the Nith, and by the march between his land and ours. 
The hares often came and nibbled our wheat braird ; and once, in the 
gloaming,-^it was in April, — I got a shot at one, and wounded her : she ran 
bleeding by Burns, who was pacing up and down by himself, not far from 
me. He started, and with a bitter curse, ordered me out of his sight, or 
he would throw me instantly into the Nith. And had I stayed, I'll war-, 
rant he would have been as good as his word — though I was both young 
and strong." 

Among other curious travellers who found their way about this time to 
Elliesland, was Captain Grose, the celebrated antiquarian, whom Burns 
briefly describes as 

" A fine fat fodgel wight — 
Of stature short, but genius bright ;" 

and who has painted his own portrait, both with pen and pencil, at full 
length, in his Olio. This gentleman's taste and pursuits are ludicrously set 
forth in the copy of verses — 

* These particulars are from a letter of David Macculioch, Esf(., who, being at this period 
a very young man, a passionate admirer of Burns, and a capital smger of msmy of his serious 
songs, used ()ftcn, in his cntlmsiasm, to accompany the poet on his professional excursions. 

-j- Burns's famous black punch-bowl, of Inverary marble, was the nuptial gift of Mr. Ar- 
mour, his father-in-law, who himself fasliioned it. After passing through many hands, it is 
now in excellent keeping, that of Alexander Ilastie, Esq. ot London. 



Ixxxviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

" Hear, Land o' Cakes and brither Scots, 
Frae Maidenkirk to John O'Groats, 
A chield's amang ye takin' notes," &c. 

and, inter alia, his love of port is not forgotten. Grose and Burns had too 
much in common, not to become great friends. The poet's accurate know- 
ledge of Scottish phraseology and customs, was of great use to the re- 
searches of the humourous antiquarian ; and, above all, it is to their ac- 
quaintance that we owe Tarn o Shanter. Burns told the story as he had 
heard it in Ayrshire, in a letter to the Captain, and was easily persuaded 
to versify it. The poem was the work of one day ; and Mrs. Burns well re- 
members the circumstances. He spent most of the day on his favourite walk 
by the river, where, in the afternoon, she joined him with some of her 
children. " He was busily engaged crooning to himsell, and Mrs. Burns 
perceiving that her presence was an interruption, loitered behind with her 
little ones among the broom. Her attention was presently attracted by the 
strange and wild gesticulations of the bard, who, now at some distance, 
was agonized with an ungovernable access of joy. He was reciting very 
loud, and with the tears rolling down his cheeks, those animated verses 
which he had just conceived : — 

" Now Tarn ! O Tarn ! had they been queans, 
A' plump and strappin' in their teens ; 
Their sarks, instead of creeshie flannen. 
Been snaw-white seventeen-hunder *linen, — 
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, 
That ance were plush o' good blue hair, 
I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies, 
For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies !" -|- 

To the last Burns was of opinion that Tarn o Shanter was the best of 
all his productions ; and although it does not always happen that poet and 
public come to the same conclusion on such points, I believe the decision in 
question has been all but unanimously approved of. The admirable execu- 
tion of the piece, so far as it goes, leaves nothing to wish for ; the only cri- 
ticism has been, that the catastrophe appears unworthy of the preparation. 
Burns lays the scene of this remarkable performance almost on the spot 
where he was born ; and all the terrific circumstances by which he has 
marked the progress of Tarn's midnight journey, are drawn from local tra- 
dition. 

" By this time he was cross the ford 
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd. 
And past the birks and meikle stane, 
Whare drucken Charlie brak's neck-bane ; 
And through the whins, and by the cairn, 
Whare hunter's fand the murder'd bairn ; 
And near the thorn, aboon the well, 
Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersell." 

None of these tragic memoranda were derived from imagination. Nor was 
Tarn o' Shanter himself an imaginary character. Shanter is a farm close 
to Kirkoswald's, that smuggling village, in which Burns, when nineteen 
years old, studied mensuration, and " first became acquainted with scenes 
of swaggering riot." The then occupier of Shanter, by name Douglas 

* " The manufacturer's term for a fine linen, woven on a reed of 1/00 divisions." — Cromek. 

-|- The above is quoted from a MS. journal of Cromek. Mr. M'Diarmid confirms the 
statement, and adds, that the poet, having committed the verses to writing on tlie top of his 
sod-dyke over the water, came into the house, and read them immediately in high triumph at 
the fireside. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Ixxxix 

Graliame, was, by all accounts, e{|ually v\hal the Tain of the poet appears, 
— a jolly, careless, rustic, who took much more interest in the contraband 
traffic of the coast, than the rotation of crops. Burns knew the man well ; 
and to his dying day, he, nothing loath, passed among his rural compeers 
by the name of Tani o' 8hanter. 

A few words will bring us to the close of Burns's career at EUiesland. 
Mr. Ramsay of Oclitertyre, happening to pass through Nithsdale in 1790, 
met Burns riding rapidly near Closeburn. The poet was obliged to pursue 
his professional journey, but sent on Mr. Ramsay and his fellow-traveller 
to EUiesland, where he joined them as soon as his duty permitted him, 
saying, as he entered, " I come, to use the words of Shakspearc, stewed 
in haste." Mr. Ramsay was " much pleased with his uxor Sabina fjitaiis, 
and his modest mansion, so unlike the habitation of ordinary rustics." 
The evening was spent delightfully. A gentleman of dry temperament, 
who looked in accidentally, soon partook the contagion, and sat listen- 
ing to Burns with the tears running over his cheeks. " Poor Burns!" says 
Mr. Ramsay, " from that time I met him no more." 

The summer after, some English travellers, calling at EUiesland, were 
told that the poet was walking by the river. They proceeded in search ot 
him, and presently, " on a rock that projected into the stream, they saw 
a man employed in angling, of a singular appearance. He had a cap made 
of a fox's skin on his head ; a loose great -coat, fastened round him by a 
belt, from which depended an enormous Highland broadsword. It was 
Burns. He received them with great cordiality, and asked them to share 
his humble dinner." These travellers also classed the evening they spent 
at EUiesland with the brightest of their lives. 

Towards the close of 1791, the poet, finally despairing of his farm, de- 
termined to give up his lease, which the kindness of his landlord rendered 
easy of arrangement ; and procuring an appointment to the Dumfries divi- 
sion, which raised his salary from the revenue to £70 per annum, removed 
his family to the county town, in which he terminated his days. His con- 
duct as an excise officer had hitherto met with uniform a})probation ; and 
he nourished warm hopes of being promoted, when he had thus avowedly 
devoted himself altogether to the service. He left EUiesland, however, 
with a heavy heart. The affection of his neighbours was rekindled in all its 
early fervour by the thoughts of parting with him ; and the roifp of his 
farming-stock and other effects, was, in spiteof w^hisky, a very melancholy 
scene. The competition for his chatties was eager, each being anxious to 
secure a' memorandum of Burns's residence among them. It is pleasing to 
know, that among other " titles manifold" to their respect and gratitude, 
Burns had superintended the formation of a subscription library in the parish. 
His letters to the booksellers on this subject do him much honour : liis 
choice of authors (which business was naturally left to his discretion) being 
in the highest degree judicious. Such institutions are now common, almost 
universal, indeed, in all the rural districts of southern Scotland ; but it 
should never be forgotten that Burns was among the first, if not the very 
first, to set the example. " He was so good," says Mr. Riddel, " as to 
take the whole management of this concern ; he was treasurer, librarian, 
and censor, to our little society, who will long have a grateful sense of his 
public spirit, and exertions for their improvement and information." Once, 
and only once, did Burns quit liis residence at EUiesland to revisit Edin- 
burgh. His object was to close accounts with Creech ; that business ac- 

14 



xc LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

compHshed, he returned immediately, and he never again saw the capital. 
He thus writes to Mrs. Dunlop : — " To a man who has a home, however 
humble and remote, if that home is, like mine, the scene of domestic com- 
fort, the bustle of Edinburgh will soon be a business of sickening disgust — 

" Vain pomp and glory of the world, I hate you !" 

" When I must skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gap- 
ing blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim, 
what merits had he had, or what demerits have I had, in some state of 
pre- existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre 
of rule, and the key of riches in his puny fist, and I kicked into the world, 
the sport of folly or the victim of pride .... often as I have glided with 
humble stealth through the pomp of Prince's Street, it has suggested itself 
to me as an improvement on the present human figure, that a man, in pro- 
portion to his own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have 
pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his 
horns, or as we draw out a perspective." 



i 



i 



CHAPTER VIIL 

Contents. — Is more hesei in town than country — His early biographers, {Dr. Currie not ex- 
cepted^, have coloured too darkly under that head — It is not correct to speak of the poet as 
having sunk into a toper, or a solitary drinker, or of his revels as other than occasional, or of 
their having interfered with the ptinctual discharge of his official duties — He is shown to 
?iave been the affectionate and beloved husband, although passing follies imprited ; and the 
constant and most assiduous instructor of his children — Impulses of the French Revolution 
— Symptoms of fraternizing — The attention of his official superiors is called to them — Prac- 
tically no blow is inflicted, only the bad name — Interesting details of this period — Gives his 
whole soul to song making — Preference in that for his native dialect, with the ether attend- 
ant facts, as to that portion of his imviortal lays. 



** The King's most humble servant, I 
Can scarcely spare a minute; 
But I am yours at dinner-time, 
Or else the devil's in it." * 

The four principal biographers of our poet, Heron, Currie, Walker, and 
Irving, concur in the general statement, that his moral course from the 
time when he settled in Dumfries, was downwards. Heron knew more of 
the matter personally than any of the others, and his words are these : — 
*' In Dumfries his dissipation became still more deeply habitual. He was 
here exposed more than in the country, to be solicited to share the riot 
of the dissolute and the idle. Foolish young men, such as writers' ap- 
prentices, young surgeons, merchants' clerks, and his brother excise- 
men, flocked eagerly about him, and from time to time pressed him to 
drink with them, that they might enjoy his wicked wit. The Caledonian 
Club, too, and the Dumfries and Galloway Hunt, had occasional meet- 
ings in Dumfries after Burns came to reside there, and the poet was of 
course invited to share their hospitality, and hesitated not to accept the 
invitation. The morals of the town were, in consequence of its becom- 
ing so much the scene of public amusement, not a little corrupted, and 
though a husband and a father. Burns did not escape suffering by the gene- 
ral contamination, in a manner which I forbear to describe. In the inter- 
vals between his different fits of intemperance, he suffered the keenest an- 
guish of remorse and horribly af^ictive foresight. His Jean behaved with 
a degree of maternal and conjugal tenderness and prudence, which made 
him feel more bitterly the evils of his misconduct, though they could not 
reclaim him." — This picture, dark as it is, wants some distressing shades 
that mingle in the parallel one by Dr. Currie ; it wants nothing, however, 
of which truth demands the insertion. That Burns, dissipated, ere he went 
to Dumfries, became still more dissipated in a town, than he had been in 
the country, is certain. It may also be true, that his wife had her own 

• " The above answer to an invitation was written extempore on a leaf torn from his Ex- 
cise>book. — Cromek's MSS 



xcii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

particular causes, sometimes, for dissatisfaction. But that Burns ever sunk 
into a toper — that he ever was addicted to soHtary drinking — that his bot- 
tle ever interfered witli his discharge of his duties as an exciseman — or 
that, in spite of some transitory follies, he ever ceased to be a most affec- 
tionate husband — all these charges have been insinuated — and they are all 
false. His intemperance was, as Heron says, mfifs; his aberrations of all 
kinds were occasional, not systematic ; they were all to himself the sources 
of exquisite misery in the retrospect ; they were the aberrations of a man 
whose moral sense was never deadened ; — of one who encountered more 
temptations from without and from within, than the immense majority of 
mankind, far from having to contend against, are even able to imagine ; — 
of one, finally, who prayed for pardon, where alone effectual pardon could 
be found ; — and who died ere he had reached that term of life up to which 
the passions of many, who, their mortal career being regarded as a whole, 
are honoured as among the most virtuous of mankind, have proved too 
strong for the control of reason. We have already seen that the poet was 
careful of decorum in all things during the brief space of his prosperity at 
Elliesland, and that he became less so on many points, as the prospects of 
his farming speculation darkened around him. It seems to be equally certain, 
that he entertained high hopes of promotion in the excise at the period of 
his removal to Dumfries ; and that the comparative recklessness of his 
later conduct there, was consequent on a certain overclouding of these pro- 
fessional expectations. The case is broadly stated so by Walker and Paul ; 
and there are hints to the same effect in the narrative of Currie. The 
statement has no doubt been exaggerated, but it has its foundation in truth ; 
and by the kindness of Mr. Train, supervisor at Castle Douglas in Gallo- 
way, 1 shall presently be enabled to give some details which may throw 
light on this business. 

Burns was much patronised when in Edinburgh by the Honourable Henry 
Erskine, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, and other leading Whigs of 
the place — much more so, to their honour be it said, than by any of the 
influential adherents of the then administration. His landlord at Ellies- 
land, Mr. jNIiller of Dalsvvinton, his neighbour, Mr. Riddel of Friars- Carse, 
and most of the other gentlemen who showed him special attention, belong- 
ed to the same political party ; and, on his removal to Dumfries, it so hap- 
pened, that some of his immediate superiors in the revenue service of the 
district, and other persons of standing authority, into whose society he was 
thrown, entertained sentiments of the same description. Burns, whenever 
in his letters he talks seriously of political matters, uniformly describes his 
early jacobitism as mere " matter of fancy." It may, however, be easily 
believed, that a fancy like his, long indulged in dreams of that sort, was 
well prepared to pass into certain other dreams, which likewise involved 
feelings of dissatisfaction with " the existing order of things." Many of 
the old elements of political disaffection in Scotland, put on a new shape at 
the outbreaking of the French Revolution ; and Jacobites became half jaco- 
bins, ere they were at all aM^are in what the doctrines of jacobinism were 
to end. The Whigs naturally regarded the first dawn of freedom in France 
with feelings of sympathy, delight, exultation. The general, the all but 
universal tone of feeling was favourable to the first assailants of the Bour- 
bon despotism ; and there were i'cw who more ardently participated in the 
general sentiment of the day than Burns. 'Hie revulsion of feeling that 
took place in this country at large, when wanton atrocities began to stain 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xciii 

the course of the French Revolution, and Burke lifted his powerful voice, 
was great. Scenes more painful at the time, and more so even now in the 
retrospect, than had for generations afflicted Scotland, were the conse- 
quences of the rancour into which party feelings on both sides now rose and 
fermented. Old and dear ties of friendship were torn in sunder ; society 
was for a time shaken to its centre. In the most extravagant dreams of 
the Jacobites there had always been much to command respect, high chi- 
valrous devotion, reverence for old affections, ancestral loyalty, and the 
generosity of romance. In the new species of hostility, every thing seemed 
mean as well as perilous ; it was scorned even more than hated. The very 
name stained whatever it came near ; and men that had known and loved 
each other from boyhood, stood aloof, if this influence interfered, as if it 
had been some loathsome pestilence. 

There was a great deal of stately Toryism at this time in the town of 
Dumfries, which was the favourite winter retreat of many of the best gen- 
tlemen's families of the south of Scotland. Feelings that worked more 
violently in Edinburgh than in London, acquired additional energy still, in 
this provincial capital. All men's eyes were upon Burns. He was the 
standing marvel of the place ; his toasts, his jokes, his epigrams, his songs, 
were the daily food of conversation and scandal ; and he, open and care- 
less, and thinking he did no great harm in saying and singing what many 
of his superiors had not the least objection to hear and applaud, soon be- 
gan to be considered among the local admirers and disciples of King George 
the Third and his minister, as the most dangerous of all the apostles of se- 
dition, — and to be shunned accordingly. 

The records of the Excise-Office are silent concerning the suspicions 
which the Commissioners of the time certainly took up in regard to Burns 
as a political offender — according to the phraseology of the tempestuous 
period, a democrat. In that department, as then conducted, I am assured 
that nothing could have been more unlike the usual course of things, than 
that one syllable should have been set down in writing on such a subject, 
unless the case had been one of extremities. That an inquiry was insti- 
tuted, we know from Burns's own letters — but what the exact termination 
of the inquiry was, will never, in all probability, be ascertained. Accord- 
ing to the tradition of the neighbourhood, Burns, inter alia, gave great of- 
fence by demurring in a large mixed company to the proposed toast, " the 
health of William Pitt ;" and left the room in indignation, because the so- 
ciety rejected what he wished to substitute, namely, " the health of a 
greater and a better man, George Washington." I suppose the warmest 
admirer of Mr. Pitt's talents and politics would hardly venture now-a-days 
to dissent substantially from Burns's estimate of the comparative merits of 
these two great men. The name of Washington, at all events, when con- 
temporary passions shall have finally sunk into the peace of the grave, will 
unquestionably have its place in the first rank of heroic virtue, — a station 
which demands the exhibition of victory pure and unstained over tempta- 
tions and trials extraordinary, in kind as well as strength. But at the time 
when Burns, being a servant of Mr. Pitt's government, was guilty of this 
indiscretion, it is obvious that a great deal " more was meant than reached 
the ear." In the poet's own correspondence, we have traces of another oc- 
currence of the same sort. Burns thus writes to a gentleman at whose 
table he had dined the day before : — " I was, I know, drunk last night, but 
I am sober this morning. From the expressions Captain made use 



xciv LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

of to me, had I had nobody's welfare to care for but my own, we should 
certainly have come, according to the manner of the world, to the neces- 
sity of mm-dering one another about the business. The words were such 
as generally, I believe, end in a brace of pistols ; but I am still pleased to 
think that I did not ruin the peace and welfare of a wife and children in 
a drunken squabble. Farther, you know that the report of certain political 
opinions being mine, has already once before brought me to the brink of 
destruction. I dread last night's business may be interpreted in the same 
way. You, I beg, will take care to prevent it. I tax your wish for Mrs. 
Burns's welfare with the task of waiting on every gentleman who was pre- 
sent to state this to him ; and, as you please, show this letter. What, af- 
ter all, was the obnoxious toast ? May our success in the present war he equal 
to the justice of our cause — a toast that the most outrageous frenzy of loyalty 
cannot object to." — Burns, no question, was guilty of unpoliteness as well 
as indiscretion, in offering any such toasts as these in mixed company ; but 
that such toasts should have been considered as attaching any grave sus- 
picion to his character as a loyal subject, is a circumstance which can only 
be accounted for by reference to the exaggerated state of political feelings 
on all matters, and among all descriptions of men, at that melancholy pe«~ 
riod of disaffection, distrust, and disunion. Who, at any other period than 
that lamentable time, would ever have dreamed of erecting the drinking, 
or declining to drink, the health of a particular minister, or the approving, 
or disapproving, of a particular measure of government, into the test of a 
man's loyalty to his King ? 

Burns, eager of temper, loud of tone, and with declamation and sarcasm 
equally at command, was, we may easily believe, the most hated of human 
beings, because the most dreaded, among the provincial champions of the 
administration of which he thought fit to disapprove. But that he ever, in 
his most ardent moods, upheld the principles of those whose applause of 
the French Revolution was but the mask of revolutionary designs at home, 
after these principles had been really developed by those that maintained 
them, and understood by him, it may be safely denied. There is not, in 
all his correspondence, one syllable to give countenance to such a charge. 
His indiscretion, however, did not always confine itself to words; and 
though an incident now about to be recorded, belongs to the year 1792, 
before the French war broke out, there is reason to believe that it formed 
the main subject of the inquiry which the Excise Commissioners thought 
themselves called upon to institute touching the politics of our poet. 

At that period a great deal of contraband traffic, chiefly from the Isle of 
Man, was going on along the coasts of Galloway and Ayrshire, and the 
whole of the revenue officers from Gretna to Dumfries, were placed under 
the orders of a superintendent residing in Annan, who exerted himself 
zealously in intercepting the descent of the smuggling vessels. On the 
27th of February, a suspicious-looking brig was discovered in the Solway 
Frith, and Burns was one of the party whom the superintendent conducted 
to watch her motions. She got into shallow water the day afterwards, and 
the officers were enabled to discover that her crew were numerous, armed, 
and not likely to yield without a struggle. Lewars, a brother exciseman, 
an intimate friend of our poet, was accordingly sent to Dumfries for a 
guard of dragoons ; the superintendent, Mr. Crawford, proceeded himself 
on a similar errand to Ecclefechan, and Burns was left with some men un- 
der his orders, to watch the brig, and prevent landing or escape. From 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xrdv 

the private journal of one of the excisemen, (now in my hands), it appears 
that Burns manifested considerable impatience while thus occupied, being 
left for many hours in a wet salt-marsh, with a force which he knew to be 
inadequate for the purpose it was meant to fulfil. One of his comrades 
hearing him abuse his friend Lewars in particular, for being slow about his 
journey, the man answered, that he also wished the devil had him for his 
pains, and that Burns, in the meantime, would do well to indite a song upon 
the sluggard : Burns said nothing ; but after taking a few strides by himself 
among the reeds and shingle, rejoined his party, and chanted to them this 
well-known ditty : — 

" The de'il cam' fiddling thro' the town, 
And danc'd awa' wi' the Exciseman ; 
And ilk auld wife cry'd, ' Auld Mahoun, 
' We wish you luck o' the prize, man. 

Chords. — ' We'll mak' ourmaut, and brew our drink, 
' We'll dance and sing ^nd rejoice, man ; 
* And mony thanks to the muckle black de'il, 
' That danc'd awa' wi' the Exciseman. 

* There's threesome reels, and foursome reels, 

* There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man ; 

* But the ae best dance e'er cam' to our Ian', 

* Was the deil's awa' wi' the Exciseman.' " 

Lewars arrived shortly afterwards with his dragoons ; and Burns, putting 
himself at their head, waded, sword in hand, to the brig, and was the first to 
board her. The crew lost heart, and submitted, though their numbers were 
greater than those of the assailing force. The vessel was condenmed, and, 
with all her arms and stores, sold by auction next day at Dumfries : upon 
which occasion Burns, whose behaviour had been highly commended, 
thought fit to purchase four carronades, by way of trophy. But his glee 
went a step farther ; — he sent the guns, with a letter, to the French Con- 
vention, requesting that body to accept of them as a mark of his admiration 
and respect. The present, and its accompaniment, were intercepted at the 
custom-house at Dover ; and here, there appears to be little room to doubt, 
was the principal circumstance that drew on Burns the notice of his jealous 
superiors. We were not, it is true, at war with France ; but every one 
knew and felt that we were to be so ere long ; and nobody can pretend 
that Burns was not guilty, on this occasion, of a most absurd and presump- 
tuous breach of decorum. When he learned the impression that had been 
created by his conduct, and its probable consequences, he wrote to his pa- 
tron, Mr. Graham of Fintray, the following letter, dated December 1792 : 

" Sir, — I have been surprised, confounded, and distracted by Mr. Mit- 
chell, the collector, telling me that he has received an order from your 
board to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person 
disaffected to government. Sir, you are a husband and a father. You 
know what you would feel to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and 
your helpless, prattling little ones turned adrift into the world, degraded 
and disgraced, from a situation in which they had been respectable and re- 
spected, and left almost without the necessary support of a miserable exist- 
ence. Alas ! Sir, must I think that such soon will be my lot? and from the 
damned dark insinuations of hellish, groundless envy too ? I believe. Sir, I 
may aver it, and in the sight of Omniscience, that I would not tell a deli- 



xcvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

berate falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors, if worse can be, than 
those I have mentioned, hung over my head. And I say that the allega- 
tion, whatever villain has made it, is a lie. To the British Constitution, 
on revolution principles, next, after my God, I am most devoutly attached. 
You, Sir, have been much and generously my friend. Heaven knows how 
warmly I have felt the obligation, and how gratefully I have thanked you. 
Fortune, Sir, has made you powerful, and me impotent ; has given you pa- 
tronage, and me dependence. I would not, for my single self, call on your 
humanity : were such my insular, unconnected situation, 1 would disperse 
the tear that now swells in my eye ; I could brave misfortune ; I could face 
ruin ; at the worst, ' death's thousand doors stand open.' But, good God ! 
the tender concerns that I have mentioned, the claims and ties that I see 
at this moment, and feel around me, how they unnerve courage and wither 
resolution ! To your patronage, as a man of some genius, you have allowed 
me a claim ; and your esteem, as an honest man, I know is my due. To 
these, Sir, permit me to appeal. By these may I adjure you to save me 
from that misery which threatens to overwhelm me ; and which, with my 
latest breath, 1 will say I have not deserved !" 

On the 2d of January, (a week or two afterwards), we find him writing to 
Mrs. Dunlop in these terras : — " Mr. C. can be of little service to me at 
present ; at least, I should be shy of applying. I cannot probabl}^ be set- 
tled as a supervisor for several years. I must wait tlie rotation of lists, 
&c. Besides, some envious malicious devil has raised a little demur on my 
political principles, and I wish to let that matter settle before I offer my- 
self too much in the eye of my superiors. 1 have set henceforth a seal on 
my lips, as to these unhicky politics ; but to you I must breathe my senti- 
ments. In this, as in every thing else, I shall show the undisguised emo- 
tions of my soul. War, I deprecate : misery and ruin to thousands are in 
the blast that announces the destructive demon. But " 

** The remainder of this letter," says Cromek, " has been torn away by 
some barbarous hand." — There can be little doubt that it was torn away by 
one of the kindest hands in the world, that of Mrs. Dunlop herself, and 
from the most praise-worth motive. 

The exact result of the Excise Board's investigation is hidden, as has 
been said above, in obscurity ; nor is it at all likely that the cloud will be 
withdrawn hereafter. A general impression, however, appears to have 
gone forth, that the affair terminated in something which Burns himself 
considered as tantamount to the destruction of all hope of future promo- 
tion in his profession ; and it has been insinuated by almost every one of 
his biographers, that the crushing of these hopes operated unhappily, even 
fatally, on the tone of his mind, and, In consequence, on the habits of his 
life. In a word, the early death of Burns has been (by implicailon at least) 
ascribed mainly to the circumstances in question. Even Sir Walter Scott 
has distinctly intimated his acquiescence in this prevalent notion. " The 
political predilections," says he, " for they could hardly be termed princi- 
ples, of Burns, were entirely determined by his feelings. At his first ap- 
pearance, he felt, or affected, a propensity to Jacobltism. Indeed, a youth 
of his warm imagination in Scotland thirty years ago, could hardly escape 
this bias. The side of Charles Edward was that, not surely of sound sense 
and sober reason, but of romantic gallantry and high achievement. The 
inadequacy of the means by which that prince attempted to regain the 
crown forfeited by his fathers, the strange and almost poetical adventures 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xcvii 

which he underwent, — the Scottish martial character, honoured in his vic- 
tories, and degraded and crushed in liis defeat, — the tales of the veterans 
who had followed his adventurous standard, were all calculated to impress 
upon the mind of a poet a warm interest in the cause of the House of 
Stuart. Yet the impression was not of a very serious cast; for Burns him- 
self acknowledges in one of his letters, (Reliques, p. 240), that ' to tell 
the matter of fact, except when my passions were heated by some acci- 
dental cause, my Jacobitism was merely by way of vive la bagatelle' The 
same enthusiastic ardour of disposition swayed Burns in his choice of poli- 
tical tenets, when the country was agitated by revolutionary principles. 
That the poet should have chosen the side on which high talents were 
most likely to procure celebrity ; that he to whom the fastidious distinc- 
tions of society were always odious, should have listened with compla- 
cence to the voice of French philosophy, which denounced them as usur- 
pations on the rights of man, was precisely the thing to be expected. Yet 
we cannot but think, that if his superiors in the Excise department had 
tried the experiment of soothing rather than irritating his feelings, they 
might have spared themselves the disgrace of rendering desperate the pos- 
sessor of such uncommon talents. For it is but too certain^ that from the 
moment his hopes of promotion were utterly blasted, his tendency to dis- 
sipation hurried him precipitately into those excesses which shortened his 
life. We doubt not, that in that awful period of national discord, he had 
done and said enough to deter, in ordinary cases, the servants of govern- 
ment from countenancing an avowed partizan of faction. But this partizan 
was Burns ! Surely the experiment of lenity might have been tried, and 
perhaps successfully. The conduct of Mr. Graham of Fintray, our poet's 
only shield against actual dismission and consequent ruin, reflects the high- 
est credit on that gentleman." 

In the general strain of sentiment in this passage, who can refuse to 
concur ? but I am bound to sa}^, that after a careful examination of all the 
documents, printed and MS., to which I have had access, I have great 
doubts as to some of the principal facts assumed in this eloquent state- 
ment. I have before me, for example, a letter of Mr. Findlater, formerly 
Collector at Glasgow, who was, at the period in question, Burns's imme- 
diate superior in the Dumfries district, in which that very respectable per- 
son distinctly says : — " I may venture to assert, that when Burns was ac- 
cused of a leaning to democracy, and an inquiry into his conduct took 
place, he was subjected, in consequence thereof, to no more than perhaps 
a verbal or private caution to be more circumspect in future. Neither do 
I believe his promotion was thereby affected, as has been stated. That, 
had he lived, would, I have every reason to think, have gone on in the 
usual routine. His good and steady friend Mr. Graham would have attended 
to this. What cause, therefore, was there for depression of spirits on this 
account ? or how should he have been hurried thereby to a premature 
grave ? / never saw his spirit fail till he was borne down by the pressure 
of disease and bodily weakness ; and even then it would occasionally revive, 
and like an expiring lamp, emit bright flashes to the last." 

When the war had fairly broken out, a battalion of volunteers was form- 
ed in Dumfries, and Burns was an original member of the corps. It is 
very true that his accession was objected to by some of his neighbours ; 
but these were over- ruled by the gentlemen who took the lead in the busi- 
ness, and the poet soon became, as might have been expected, the great- 

15 



I 
xcviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

est possible favourite with his brothers in arms. His commanding officer. 
Colonel De Peyster, attests his zealous discharge of his duties as a mem- 
ber of the corps ; and their attachment to him was on the increase to the 
last. He was their laureate, and in that capacity did more good service to 
the government of the country, at a crisis of the darkest alarm and dan- 
ger, than perhaps any one person of his rank and station, with the ex- 
ception of Dibdin, had the power or the inclination to render. " Burns," 
says Allan Cunningham, " was a zealous lover of his country, and has 

stamped his patriotic feelings in many a lasting verse His poor and 

honest Sodger laid hold at once on the public feeling, and it was every- 
where sung witli an enthusiasm which only began to abate when Campbell's 
Exde of Erin and Wounded Hussar were published. Dumfries, which 
sent so many of her sons to the wars, rung with it from port to port ; and 
the poet, wherever he went, heard it echoing from house and hall. I wish 
this exquisite and useful song, with Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled^ — the 
Song of Death, and Does haughtg Gaul Invasion Threat, — all lyrics which 
enforce a love of country, and a martial enthusiasm into men's breasts, had 
obtained some reward for the poet. His perishable conversation was re- 
membered by the rich to his prejudice — his imperishable lyrics were re- 
warded only by the admiration and tears of his fellow peasants." 

Lastly, whatever the rebuke of the Excise Board amounted to — (Mr. 
James Gray, at that time schoolmaster in Dumfries, and seeing much of 
Burns both as the teacher of his children, and as a personal friend and as- 
sociate of literary taste and talent, is the only person who gives any thing 
like an exact statement : and according to him. Burns was admonished 
" that it was his business to act, not to think") — in whatever language the 
censure was clothed, the Excise Board did nothing from which Burns had 
any cause to suppose that his hopes of ultimate promotion were extinguish- 
ed. Nay, if he had taken up such a notion, rightly or erroneously, Mr. 
Findlater, who had him constantly under his eye, and who enjoyed all his 
confidence, and who enjoyed then, as he still enjoys, the utmost confidence 
of the Board, must have known the fact to be so. Such, I cannot help 
thinking, is the fair view of the case : at all events, we know that Burns, 
the year before he died, was permitted to act as a Supervisor ; a thing not 
likely to have occurred had there been any resolution against promoting 
him in his proper order to a permanent situation of that superior rank. 

On the whole, then, I am of opinion that the Excise Board have been 
dealt with harshly, when men of eminence have talked of their conduct to 
Burns as affixing disgrace to them. It appears that Burns, being guilty 
unquestionably of great indiscretion and indecorum both of word and deed, 
was admonished in a private manner, that at such a period of national dis- 
traction, it behoved a public officer, gifted with talents and necessarily with 
influence like his, very carefully to abstain from conduct which, now that 
passions have had time to cool, no sane man will say became his situation : 
that Burns's subsequent conduct effaced the unfavourable impression creat- 
ed in the minds of his superiors ; and that he had begun to taste the fruits 
of their recovered approbation and confidence, ere his career was closed by 
illness and death. These Commissioners of Excise were themselves sub- 
ordinate officers of the government, and strictly responsible for those un- 
der them. That they did try the experiment of lenity to a certain extent, 
appears to be made out ; that they could have been justified in trying it to a 
farther extent, is at the least doubtful. But with regard to the government 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. xcix 

of the country itself, I must say I tliink it is mucli more difficult to defend 
them. Mr. Pitt's ministry gave Dibdin a pension of £200 a-year for writ- 
ing his Sea Songs ; and one cannot help remembering, that when Burns did 
begin to excite the ardour and patriotism of his countrymen by such songs 
as Mr. Cunningham has been alluding to, there were persons who had 
every opportunity of representing to the Premier the claims of a greater 
than Dibdin. Lenity, indulgence, to whatever length carried in such 
quarters as these, woukl have been at once safe and graceful. What the 
minor politicians of the day thought of Burns's poetry I know not ; but 
Mr. Pitt himself appreciated it as highly as any man. " I can think of 
no verse," said the great Minister, when Burns was no more — " I can think 
of no verse since Shakspeare's, that has so much the appearance of com- 
ing sweetly from nature." * 

Had Burns put forth some newspaper squibs upon Lepaux or Carnot, or 
a smart pamphlet " On the State of the Country," he might have been 
more attended to in his lifetime. It is common to say, " what is every- 
body's business is nobody's business ;" but one may be pardoned for think- 
ing that in such cases as this, that which the general voice of the country 
does admit to be everybody's business, comes in fact to be the business of 
those wdiom the nation intrusts with national concerns. 

To return to Sir Walter Scott's reviewal — it seems that he has some- 
what overstated the political indiscretions of which Burns was actually 
guilty. Let us hear the counter-statement of Mr. Gray, f who, as has al- 
ready been mentioned, enjoyed Burns's intimacy and confidence during his 
residence in Dumfries. — No one who ever knew anything of that excellent 
man, will for a moment suspect him of giving any other than what he be- 
lieves to be true. 

" Burns (says he) was enthusiastically fond of liberty, and a lover of the 
popular part of our constitution ; but he saw and admired the just and de- 
licate proportions of the political fabric, and nothing could be farther from 
his aim than to level with the dust the venerable pile reared by the labours 
and the wisdom of ages. That provision of the constitution, however, by 
which it is made to contain a self-correcting principle, obtained no incon- 
siderable share of his admiration : he was, therefore, a zealous advocate of 
constitutional reform. The necessity of this he often supported in conver- 
sation with all the energy of an irresistible eloquence ; but there is no evi- 
dence that he ever Avent farther. He was a member of no political club. 
At the time when, in certain societies, the mad cry of revolution was rais- 
ed from one end of the kingdom to the other, his voice was never heard in 
their debates, nor did he ever support their opinions in writing, or corre- 
spond with them in any form whatever. Though limited to an income 
which any other man would have considered poverty, he refused ct50 a- 
year offered to him for a weekly article, by the proprietors of an opposition 
paper ; and two reasons, equally honourable to him, induced him to reject 
this proposal. His independent spirit spurned indignantly the idea of be- 

* I am assured that Mr. Pitt used these words at the table of the late Lord Liverpool, 
soon after Burns's death. How that event might come to be a natural topic of conversation 
at tliat table, will be seen in the sequel. 

t IMr. Gray removed from the school of Dumfries to the High School of Edinburgh, in 
which eminent seminary he for many years laboured with distinguished success. He then be- 
came Professor of Latin in the Institution at Belfast ; he afterwards entered into holy orders, 
and died a few years since in the East Indies, as officiating chaplain to the Company in the 
presidency of Madras. 



c LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

coming the hireting of a party ; and whatever may have been his opinion 
of the men and measures that then prevailed, he did not think it right to 
fetter the operations of that government by which he was employed." 

The satement about the newspaper, refers to Mr. Perry of the Morning 
Chronicle, who, at the suggestion of Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, made the 
proposal referred to, and received for answer a letter which may be seen 
in the General Correspondence of our poet, and the tenor of which is in 
accordance with what Mr. Gray has said. Mr. Perry afterwards pressed 
Burns to settle in London as a regular writer for his paper, and the poet 
declined to do so, alleging that, however small, his Excise appointment 
was a certainty, which, in justice to his family, he could not think of aban- 
doning. * 

Burns, after the Excise inquiry, took care, no doubt, to avoid similar 
scrapes ; but he had no reluctance to meddle largely and zealously in the 
squabbles of county politics and contested elections ; and thus, by merely 
espousing, on all occasions, the cause of the Whig candidates, kept up very 
effectually the spleen which the Tories had originally conceived on tolera- 
bly legitimate grounds. One of the most celebrated of these effusions was 
written on a desperately contested election for the Dumfries district of 
boroughs, between Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, and Mr. Miller the 
younger of Dalswinton ; Burns, of course, maintaining the cause of his pa- 
tron's family. There is much humour in it : — 

THE FIVE CARLINES. 

1. There were five carlines in the south, they fell upon a scheme, 
To send a lad to Lunnun town to bring them tidings hame, 
Nor only bring them tidings hame, but do their errands there, 
And aiblins gowd and honour baith might be that laddie's share. 

2. There was Maggy by the banks o' Nith, -j- a dame w' pride eneugh, 
And Marjor) o' tne Monylochs, ± a carline auld and teugh ; 

And blinkiu Bass o' Annandale, § that dwelt near Solway-side, 
And whisky Jean that took her gill in Galloway sae wide ; || 
And black Joan tVae Crichton Peel, 51 o' gipsy kith and kin, — • 
Five wighter carlines war na foun' the south countrie Avithin. 

3. To send a lad to Lunnun town, they met upon a day, 

And mony a knight and mony a laird their errand fain wad gae, 
But nae ane could their fancy please ; O ne'er a ane but tway. 

4. The first he was a belted knight, ** bred o' a border clan. 
And he wad gae to Lunnun town, might nae man him withstan'. 
And he wad do theii errands weel, and meikle he wad say, 
And ilka ane at Lunnun court would bid to him gude day. 

5. The next came in a sodger youth, -f-f- and spak wi' modest grace, 
y\nd he wad gae to Lunnun town, if sae their pleasure was ; 

He wadna hecht them courtly gifts, nor meikle speech pretend. 
But he wad hecht an honest heart, wad ne'er desert a friend. 

6. Now, wham to choose and Avham refuse, at strife thir carlines fell, 
For some had gentle folks to please, and some wad please themsell. 

7. Then out spak mim-mou'd Meg o' Nith, and she spak up wi' pride, 
And she wad send the sodger youth, whatever might betide ; 

For the auld guidman o' Lunnun Xt court she didna care a pin ; 
But she wad send the sodger youth to greet his eldest son. §§ 

• This is stated on the authority of ]\Iajor Miller. 

•f Dumfries. ij: Lachmaben. § Annan. || Kirkcudbright. 

% Sanquhar. ** Sir J. Johnstone. f-f- Major Miller. 

tt George ML §§ The Prince of Wales. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. ci 

f\. Then up sprang Bess o' Annandale, and a deadly aith she's taen, 
That she wad vote the border knight, though she should vote her lane ; 
For far-afF fowls hae feathers fair, and fools o' change are fain ; 
But 1 hae tried the border knight, and I'll try him yet again. 

9. Says black Joan frae Crichton Peel, a carline stoor and grim. 

The auld guidman, and the young guidman, for me may sink or swim ; 
For fools will freat o' right or wrang, while knaves laugh them to scorn ; 
But the sodger's friends hae blawn the best, so he shall bear the horn. 

10. Then whisky Jean spak ower her drink. Ye weel ken, kimmers a', 
T!ie auld guidman o' Lunnun court, he's back's been at the wa' ; 
And mony a friend that kiss't his cup, is now a fremit wight, _ 

But it's ne'er be said o' whisky Jean — I'll send the border knight. 

11. Then slow raise Marjory o' the Lochs, and wrinkled was her brow, 
Her ancient weed was russet gray, her auld Scots bluid was true ; 
There's some great folks set light by me, — I set as light by them ; 
But I will sen' to Lunnun toun wham I like best at hame. 

12. Sae how this weighty plea may end, nae mortal wight can tell, 
God grant the King and ilka man may look weel to himsell. 

The above is far the best humoured of these productions. The election 
to which it refers was carried in Major Miller's favour, but after a severe 
contest, and at a very heavy expense. 

These political conflicts were not to be mingled In with impunity by the 
chosen laureate, wit, and orator of the district. He himself, in an unpub- 
lished piece, speaks of the terror excited by 



Burns's venom, when 



He dips in gall unmix'd his eager pen, 

And pours his vengeance in the burning line ;" 

and represents his victims, on one of these electioneering occasions, as 
Heading a choral shout that 



He for his heresies in church and state. 



Might richly merit Muir's and Palmer's fate." 

But what rendered him more and more the object of aversion to one set of 
people, was sure to connect him more strongly M-ith the passions, and, un- 
fortunately for himself and for us, with the pleasures of the other ; and we 
have, among many confessions to the same purpose, the following, which I 
quote as the shortest, in one of the poet's letters from Dumfries to Mrs, 
Dunlop. " I am better, but not quite free of my complaint (he refers to 
the palpitation of heart.) You must not think, as you seem to insinuate, 
that in my way of life I want exercise. Of that I have enough ; but occa- 
sional hard drinking is the devil to me." He knew well what he was doing 
whenever he mingled in such debaucheries : he had, long ere this, describ- 
ed himself as parting " with a slice of his constitution" every -time he was 
guilty of such excess. 

This brings us back to a subject on which it can give no one pleasure to 
expatiate. 

" Dr. Currie," says Gilbert Burns, " knowing the events of the latter 
years of my brother's life, only from the reports which had been propagat- 
ed, and thinking it necessary, lest the candour of his work should be called 
in question, to state the substance of these reports, has given a very exag- 
gerated view of the failings of my brother's life at that period, which is cer- 
tainly to be regretted." — '< I love Dr. Currie," says the Rev. James Gray, 
already more than once referred to, but I love the memory of Burns more, 



cii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

and no consideration sliall deter me from a bold declaration of the truth. 
The poet of The Cottars Saturday Night, who felt all the charms of the 
humble piety and virtue which he sung, is charged, (in Dr. Currie's Nar- 
rative), with vices which would reduce him to a level with the most degrad- 
ed of his species. As I knew him during that period of his life emphati- 
cally called his evil days, / am enabled to speak from my own observation. 
It is not my intention to extenuate his errors, because they were combined 
with genius ; on that account, they were only the more dangerous, be- 
cause the more seductive, and deserve the more severe reprehension ; but 
I shall likewise claim that nothing may be said in malice even against him. 
It came under my own view professionally, that he superin- 
tended the education of his children with a degree of care that I have ne- 
ver seen surpassed by any parent in any rank of life whatever. In the bo- 
som of his family he spent many a delightful hour in directing the studies 
of his eldest son, a boy of uncommon talents. I have frequently found him 
explaining to this youth, then not more than nine years of age, the Eng- 
lish poets, from Shakspeare to Gray, or storing his mind with examples of 
heroic virtue, as they live in the pages of our most celebrated English his- 
torians. I would ask any person of common candour, if employments like 
these are consistent with liabitual drunkenness ? 

" It is not denied that he sometimes mingled with society unworthy of him. 
He was of a social and convivial nature. He was courted by all classes of 
men for the fascinating powers of his conversation, but over his social scene 
uncontrolled passion never presided. Over the social bowl, his wit flashed 
for hours together, penetrating whatever it struck, like the fire from hea- 
ven ; but even in the hour of thoughtless gaity and merriment, I never 
knew it tainted by indecency. It was playful or caustic by turns, follow- 
ing an allusion through all its windings ; astonishing by its rapidity, or 
amusing by its wild originality, and grotesque, yet natural combinations, 
but never, within my observation, disgusting by its grossness. In his 
morning hours, I never saw him like one suffering from the effects of last 
night's intemperance. He appeared then clear and unclouded. He was 
the eloquent advocate of humanity, justice, and political freedom. From 
his paintings, virtue appeared more lovely, and piety assumed a more ce- 
lestial mien. While his keen eye was pregnant with fancy and feeling, 
and his voice attuned to the very passion which he wished to communicate, 
it would hardly have been possible to conceive any being more interesting 
and delightful. I may likewise add, that to the very end of his life, reading 
was his favourite amusement. I have never known any man so intimately 
acquainted with the elegant English authors. He seemed to have the 
poets by heart. The prose authors he could quote either in their own 
words, or clothe their ideas in language more beautiful than their own. 
Nor was there ever any decay in any of the poM^ers of his mind. To the 
last day of his life, his judgment, his memory, his imagination, were fresh 
and vigorous, as when he composed The Cottar s Saturday Night. The 
truth is, that Burns was seldom intoxicated. The drunkard soon becomes 
besotted, and is shunned even by the convivial. Had he been so, he could 
not long have continued the idol of every party. It will be freely confes- 
sed, that the hour of enjoyment was often prolonged beyond the limit 
marked by prudence ; but what man will venture to affirm, that in situa- 
tions where he was conscious of giving so much pleasure, he could at all 
times have listened to her voice ? 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cm 

" The men with whom he generally associated, were not of the lowest 
order. He numbered among his intimate friends, many of the most respec- 
table inhabitants of Dumfries and the vicinity. Several of those were at- 
tached to him by ties that the hand of calumny, busy as it was, could ne- 
ver snap asunder. They admired the poet for his genius, and loved the 
man for the candour, generosity, and kindness of his nature. His early 
friends clung to him through good and bad report, with a zeal and fidelity 
that prove their disbelief of the malicious stories circulated to his disad- 
vantage. Among them were some of the most distinguished characters in 
this country, and not a iew females, eminent for delicacy, taste, and genius. 
They were proud of his friendship, and cherished him to the last moment 
of his existence. He was endeared to them even by his misfortunes, and 
they still retain for his memory that affectionate veneration which virtue 
alone inspires." 

Part of Mr. Gray's letter is omitted, only because it touches on subjects, 
as to which Mr. Findlater's statement must be considered as of not merely 
sufficient, but the very highest authority. 

" My connexion with Robert Burns," says that most respectable man, 
*' commenced immediately after his admission into the Excise, and con- 
tinued to the hour of his death.* In all that time, the superintendence of 
his behaviour, as an officer of the revenue, was a branch of my especial pro- 
vince, and it may be supposed that X would not be an inattentive observer 
of the general conduct of a man and a poet, so celebrated by his country- 
men. In the former capacity, he was exemplary in his attention ; and 
was even jealous of the least imputation on his vigilance : as a proof of 
^vhich, it may not be foreign to the subject to quote a part of a letter from 
him to myself, in a case of only seeming inattention. — ' I know. Sir, and re- 
gret deeply, that this business glances with a malign aspect on my charac- 
ter as an officer ; but, as I am really innocent in the affair, and as the gentle- 
man is known to be an illicit dealer, and particularly as this is the single in- 
stance of the least shadow of carelessnes or impropriety in my conduct as 
an officer, I shall be peculiarly unfortunate if my character shall fall a sa- 
crifice to the dark manoeuvres of a smuggler.' — This of itself affords more 
than a presumption of his attention to business, as it cannot be supposed he 
would have written in such a style to me, but from the impulse of a consci- 
ous rectitude in this department of his duty. Indeed, it was not till near 
the latter end of his days that there was any falling off in this respect ; and 
this was amply accounted for in the pressure of disease and accumulating 
infirmities. I will further avoAv, that 1 never saw him, which was very fre- 
quently while he lived at Elliesland, and still more so, almost every day, 
after he removed to Dumfries, but in hours of business he was quite him- 
self, and capable of discharging the duties of his office ; nor was he ever 
known to drink by himself, or seen to indulge in the use of liquor in a fore- 
noon. ... I have seen Burns in all his various phases, in his convivial 
moments, in his sober moods, and in the bosom of his family ; indeed, I 
believe I saw more of him than any other individual had occasion to see, 
after he became an Excise officer, and 1 never beheld any thing like the 
gross enormities with which he is now charged : That when set down in 
an evening with a few friends whom he liked, he was apt to prolong the 
social hour beyond the bounds which prudence would dictate, is unques- 

* Mr. Findlater watched by Burns the night before he died. 



civ LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

tionable ; but in his family, I will venture to say, he was never seen other- 
wise than attentive and affectionate to a high degree." 

These statements are entitled to every consideration : they come from 
men altogether incapable, for any purpose, of wilfully stating that which 
they know to be untrue. 

To whatever Burns's excesses amounted, they were, it is obvious, and 
that frequently, the subject of rebuke and remonstrance even from his own 
dearest friends. That such reprimands should have been received at times 
with a strange mixture of remorse and indignation, none that have consi- 
dered the nervous susceptibility and haughtiness of Burns's character can 
hear with surprise. But this was only when the good advice was oral. No 
one knew better than he how to answer the written homilies of such per- 
sons as were most likely to take the freedom of admonishing him on points 
of such delicacy ; nor is there any thing in all his correspondence more 
amusing than his reply to a certain solemn lecture of William Nicoll. . . 
*' O thou, wisest among the wise, meridian blaze of prudence, full moon 
of discretion, and chief of many counsellors ! how infinitely is thy puddle- 
headed, rattle-headed, wrong-headed, round-headed slave indebted to thy 
supereminent goodness, that from the luminous path of thy own right-lined 
rectitude thou lookest benignly down on an erring wretch, of whom the 
zig-zag wanderings defy all the powers of calculation, from the simple co- 
pulation of units, up to the hidden mysteries of fluxions ! May one feeble 
ray of that light of wisdom which darts from thy sensorium, straight as the 
arrow of heaven, and bright as the meteor of inspiration, may it be my 
portion, so that I may be less unworthy of the face and favour of that fa- 
ther of proverbs and master of maxims, that antipod of folly, and magnet 
among the sages, the wise and witty Willy Nicoll ! Amen ! amen ! Yea, 
so be it ! 

" For me ! I am a beast, a reptile, and know nothing !" &c. &c. &c. 

To how many that have moralized over the life and death of Burns, 
might not such a Tu quoque be addressed ! 

The strongest argument in favour of those who denounce the statements 
of Heron, Currie, and their fellow biographers, concerning the habits of the 
poet, during the latter years of his career, as culpably and egregiously ex- 
aggerated, still remains to be considered. On the whole, Burns gave sa- 
tisfaction by his manner of executing the duties of his station in the reve- 
nue service ; he, moreover, as Mr. Gray tells us, (and upon this ground 
Mr. Gray could not possibly be mistaken), took a lively interest in the edu- 
cation of his children, and spent more hours in their private tuition than 
fathers who have more leisure than his excisemanship left him, are often. 
in the custom of so bestowing. — " He was a kind and attentive father, and 
took great delight in spending his evenings in the cultivation of the minds 
of his children. Their education was the grand object of his life, and he 
did not, like most parents, think it sufficient to send them to public schools ; 
he was their private instructor, and even at that early age, bestowed great 
pains in training their minds to habits of thought and reflection, and in 
keeping them pure from every form of vice. This he considered as a sa- 
cred duty, and never, to the period of his last illness, relaxed in his dili- 
gence. With his eldest son, a boy of not more than nine years of age, he 
had read many of the favourite poets, and some of the best historians in 
our language ; and what is more remarkable, gave him considerable aid in 
llie study of Latin. This boy attended the Grammar School of Dumfries^ 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cr 

and soon attracted my notice by the strength of his talent, and the ardour 
of his ambition. Before he had been a year at school, I thought it right 
to advance him a form, and he began to read Csesar, and gave me transla- 
tions of that author of such beauty as I confess surprised me. On inquiry, 
I found that his father made him turn over his dictionary, till he was able 
to translate to him the passage in such a vt^ay that he could gather the au- 
thor's meaning, and that it was to him he owed that j)olished and forcible 
English with which I was so greatly struck. I have mentioned this inci- 
dent merely to show what minute attention he paid to this important 
branch of parental duty." * Lastly, although to all men's regret he wrote, 
after his removal to Dumfriesshire, only one poetical piece of considerable 
length, ( Tam 6 Shanter\ his epistolary correspondence, and his songs to 
Johnson's Museum, and to the collection of Mr. George Thomson, furnish 
undeniable proof that, in whatever fits of dissipation he unhappily indulg- 
ed, he never could possibly have sunk into any thing like that habitual 
grossness of manners and sottish degradation of mind, which the writers in 
question have not hesitated to hold up to the commiseration of mankind. 

Of his letters written at Elliesland and Dumfries, nearly three octavo 
volumes have been already printed by Currie and Cromek ; and it would 
be easy to swell the collection to double this extent. Enough, however, 
has been published to enable every reader to judge for himself of the cha- 
racter of Burns's style of epistolary composition. The severest criticism 
bestowed on it has been, that it is too elaborate — that, however natural 
the feelings, the expression is frequently more studied and artificial than 
belongs to that species of composition. Be this remark altogether just in 
point of taste, or otherwise, the fact on which it is founded, furnishes 
strength to our present position. The poet produced in these years a great 
body of elaborate prose-writing. 

We have already had occasion to notice some of his contributions to 
Johnson's Museum. He continued to the last month of his life to take a 
lively interest in that work ; and besides writing for it some dozens of ex- 
cellent original songs, his diligence in collecting ancient pieces hitherto 
unpublished, and his taste and skill in eking out fragments, were largely, 
and most happily exerted, all along, for its benefit. Mr. Cromek saw 
among Johnson's papers, no fewer than 184 of the pieces which enter into 
the collection, in Ikirns's handwriting. 

His connexion with the more important work of Mr. Thomson commenc- 
ed in September 1792 ; and Mr. Gray justly says, that whoever considers 
his correspondence with the editor, and the collection itself, must be satis- 
fied, that from that time till the commencement of his last illness, not 
many days ever passed over his head without the production of some new 
stanzas for its pages. Besides old materials, for the most part embellished 
with lines, if not verses of his own, and a whole body of hints, suggestions, 
and criticisms, Burns gave Mr. Thomson about sixty original songs. The 
songs in this collection are by many eminent critics placed decidedly at 
the head of all our poet's performances : it is by none disputed that very 
many of them are worthy of his most felicitous inspiration. He bestowed 
much more care on them than on his contributions to the Museum ; and 
the taste and feeling of the editor secured the work against any intrusions 
of that over-warm element which was too apt to mingle in his amatory ef- 

* Letter from the Rev. James Gray to Mr. Gilbert Burns. See his Edition, vol. I. Ap- 
loendix, No. v. 

16 



cvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

fusions. Burns knew that he was now engaged on a work destined for the 
eye and ear of refinement ; he laboured throughout, under the salutary feel- 
ing, " virginibus puerisque canto ;" and the consequences have been hap- 
py indeed for his own fame — for the literary taste, and the national music, 
of Scotland ; and, what is of far higher importance, the moral and national 
feelings of his countrymen. 

In almost all these productions — certainly in all that deserve to be placed 
in the first rank of his compositions — Burns made use of his native dialect. 
He did so, too, in opposition to the advice of almost all the lettered cor- 
respondents he had — more especially of Dr. Moore, who, in his own novels, 
never ventured on more than a few casual specimens of Scottish colloquy 
— following therein the example of his illustrious predecessor Smollett ; 
and not foreseeing that a triumph over English prejudice, which Smollett 
might have achieved, had he pleased to make the effort, was destined to be 
the prize of Burns's perseverance in obeying the dictates of native taste 
and judgment. Our poet received such suggestions, for the most part, in 
silence — not choosing to argue with others on a matter which concerned 
only his own feelings ; but in writing to Mr. Thomson, he had no occasion 
either to conceal or disguise his sentiments. " These English songs," 
says he, " gravel me to death. I have not that command of the language 
that I have of my native tongue ;"* and again, " so much for namby- 
pamby. I may, after all, try my hand at it in Scots verse. There I am al- 
ways most at home." -f — He, besides, would have considered it as a sort of 
national crime to do any thing that must tend to divorce the music of his 
native land from her peculiar idiom. The " genius loci" was never wor- 
shipped more fervently than by Burns. " I am such an enthusiast," says 
he, *' that in the course of my several peregrinations through Scotland, I 
made a pilgrimage to the individual spot from which every song took its 
rise, Loc/iaher and the Braes of Balleiideii excepted. So far as the locality, 
either from the title of the air or the tenor of the song, could be ascer- 
tained, I have paid my devotions at the particular shrine of every Scottish 
Muse." With such feelings, he was not likely to touch with an irreverent 
hand the old fabric of our national song, or to meditate a lyrical revolution 
for the pleasure of strangers. " There is," says he, :{: " a naivete, a pas- 
toral simplicity in a slight intermixture of Scots words and phraseology, 
which is more in unison (at least to my taste, and I will add, to every ge- 
nuine Caledonian taste), with the simple pathos or rustic sprighthness of 
our native music, than any English verses whatever. One hint more let 
me give you ; — Whatever Mr. Pleyel does, let him not alter one iota of 
the original airs ; 1 mean in the song department ; but let our Scottish na- 
tional music preserve its native features. They are, I own, frequently 
wild and irreducible to the more modern rules ; but on that very eccentri- 
city, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect." § 

Of the delight with which Burns laboured for Mr. Thomson's Collection, 
his letters contain some lively descriptions. " You cannot imagine," says 
he, 7th April 1793, " how much this business has added to my enjoy- 
ments. What with my early attachment to ballads, your book and ballad- 

* Correspondence with Mr. Thomson, p. 111. f Ibid. p. 00. X ^^^^' V- 3H. 

8 It may amuse the reader to hear, that in spite of all Burns's success in tlie use of his native 
dialect, even an eminently spirited bookseller to whom the manuscript of Waverley was sub- 
mitted, hesitated for some time about publisliing it, on account of tlie Scots dialogue interwo- 
ven in the noveL 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cvii 

making are now as completely my liobb3^horse as ever fortification was 
Uncle Toby's ; so I'll e'en canter it away till I come to the limit of my 
race. (God grant I may take the right side of the winning-post), and then, 
cheerfully looking back on the honest folks with whom I have been hap- 
py, I shall say or sing, * Sae merry as we a' hae been,' and raising my last 
looks to the whole human race, the last words of the voice of Coila shall 
be ' Good night, and joy be wi' you, a'.' " * 

" Until I am complete master of a tune in my own singing, such as it is, 
I can never," says Burns, " compose for it. My way is this : I consider 
the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expression, 
— then choose my theme, — compose one stanza. When that is composed, 
which is generally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit 
down now and then, — look out for objects in nature round me that are in 
unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy, and workings of my 
bosom, — humming every now and then the air, with the verses I have fram- 
ed. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fire- 
side of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper ; swinging at in- 
tervals on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, by way of calling forth my own 
critical strictures, as my pen goes. Seriously, this, at home, is almost in- 
variably my way. — What cursed egotism !" f 

In this correspondence with Mr. Thomson, and in Cromek's later publi- 
cation, the reader will find a world of interesting details about the particu- 
lar circumstances under which these immortal songs were severally writ- 
ten. They are all, or almost all, in fact, part and parcel of the poet's per- 
sonal history. No man ever made his muse more completely the compa- 
nion of his own individual life. A new flood of light has just been poured 
on the same subject, in Mr. Allan Cunningham's " Collection of Scottish 
Songs ;" unless, therefore, I were to transcribe volumes, and all popular 
volumes too, it is impossible to go into the details of this part of the poet's 
history. The reader must be contented with a few general rnemoranda ; 

" Do you think that the sober gin-horse routine of existence could in- 
spire a man with life, and love, and joy, — could fire him with enthusiasm, 
or melt him with pathos equal to the genius of your book ? No, no. When- 
ever I want to be more than ordinary in song — to be in some degree equal 
to your divine airs — do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial ema- 
nation ? Tout au contraire. I have a glorious recipe, the very one that for 
his own use was invented by the Divinity of healing and poetry, when erst 
he piped to the flocks of Admetus, — I put myself on a regimen of admir- 
ing a fine woman." :j: 

" I can assure you I was never more in earnest. — Conjugal love is a pas- 
sion which I deeply feel, and highly venerate ; but, somehow, it does not 
make such a figure in poesy as that other species of the passion, 

" Where love is liberty, and nature law." 

Musically speaking, the first is an instrument, of which the gamut is scanty 
and confined, but the tones inexpressibly sweet ; while the last has powers 
equal to all the intellectual modulations of the human soul. Still I am a 
very poet in my enthusiasm of the passion. The welfare and happiness of 
the beloved object is the first and inviolate sentiment that pervades my 

* Correspondence with Mr. Thomson, p. 57. "^ Ibid. p. ll'J. X Ihid. p. 174. 



cviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

soul ; and — whatever pleasures I might wish for, or whatever raptures they 
might give me — yet, if they interfere with that first principle, it is having 
these pleasures at a dishonest price ; and justice forbids, and generosity 
disdains the purchase." * 

Of all Burns's love songs, the best, in his own opinion, was that which 
begins, 

" Yestreen I had a pint o' wine, 
A place where body saw na'." 

Mr. Cunningham says, " if the poet thought so, I am sorry for it ;" while 
the Reverend Hamilton Paul fully concurs in the author's own estimate of 
the performance. 

There is in the same collection a love song, which unites the suffrages, 
and ever will do so, of all men. It has furnished Byron with a^ motto, 
and Scott has said that that motto is " worth a thousand romances." 

" Had we never loved sae kindly, 
Had we never loved sae blindly. 
Never met — or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." 

There are traditions which connect Burns with the heroines of these be- 
witching songs. 

I envy no one the task of inquiring minutely in how far these traditions 
rest on the foundation of truth. They refer at worst to occasional errors. 
" Many insinuations," says Mr. Gray, " have been made against the poet's 
character as a husband, but without the slightest proof; and I might pass 
from the charge with that neglect which it merits ; but I am happy to say 
that I have in exculpation the direct evidence of Mrs. Burns herself, who, 
among many amiable and respectable qualities, ranks a veneration for the 
memory of her departed husband, whom she never names but in terms of 
the profoundest respect and the deepest regret, to lament his misfortunes, 
or to extol his kindnesses to herself, not as the momentary overflowings of 
the heart in a season of penitence for offences generously forgiven, but an 
habitual tenderness, which ended only with his life. I place this evidence, 
which I am proud to bring forward on her own authority, against a thou- 
sand anonymous calumnies." f 

Among the effusions, not amatory, which our poet contributed to Mr. 
Thomson's Collection, the famous song of Bannockburn holds the first place. 
We have already seen in how lively a manner Burns's feelings were kindled 
when he visited that glorious field. According to tradition, the tune play- 
ed when Bruce led his troops to the charge, was " Hey tuttle tattle ;" 
and it was humming this old air as he rode by himself through Glenken, a 
wild district in Galloway, during a terrific storm of wind and rain, that the 
poet composed his Immortal lyric in its first and noblest form. This is one 
more instance of his delight in the sterner aspects of nature. 

" Come, winter, with thine angry howl, 
And raging bend the naked tree — " 

" There is hardly," says he in one of his letters, " there is scarcely any 
earthly object gives me more — I do not know if I should call it pleasure 

* Correspondence with Mr, Thomson, p. 191. 

f Letter in Gilbert Burns's Edition, vol. L Appendix, p. 437. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cix 

i^ — but something which exalts me, something which enraptures me — than 
to walk in the sheltered side of a wood in a cloudy winter day, and hear the 
stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my 
best season for devotion : my mind is wrapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to 
Him, who, to use the pompous language of the Hebrew Bard, ' walks on 
the wings of the wind.' " — To the last, his best poetry was produced amidst 
scenes of solemn desolation. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Contents — The poet'' s mortal period approaches — His peculiar temperament— Symptoms of 
premature old age — These not diminished by 7iarrow circumstances, by chagrin from neglect, 
and by the death of a Daughter — The poet misses public patronage : and even the fair fruits 
of his own genius — the appropriation ofivhich is debated for the cas7iists who yielded to him 
merely the shell — His magnanimity when death is at hand; his interviews, conversations, 
and addresses as a dying man — Dies, 21 st Jrdy 1796 — Public funeral, at which many at- 
tend, and amongst the rest the future Premier of England, who had steadily refused to ac- 
hnowledge the poet, living — His family munificently provided for by the public — Analysis of 
character — His integrity, religious state, and genius — Strictures upon him and his writings 
by Scott, Campbell, Byron, and others. 



" I dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe, 
With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear." 

We are drawing near the close of this great poet's mortal career ; and I 
would fain hope the details of the last chapter may have prepared the hu- 
mane reader to contemplate it with sentiments of sorrow, pure and unde- 
based with any considerable intermixture of less genial feelings. 

For some years before Burns was lost to his country, it is sufficiently 
plain that he had been, on political grounds, an object of suspicion and dis- 
trust to a large portion of the population that had most opportunity of ob- 
serving him. The mean subalterns of party had, it is very easy to suppose, 
delighted in decrying him on pretexts, good, bad, and indifferent, equally — 
to their superiors ; and hence, who will not willingly believe it ? the tem- 
porary and local prevalence of those extravagantly injurious reports, the 
essence of which Dr. Currie, no doubt, thought it his duty, as a biographer, 
to extract and circulate. 

A gentleman of that county, whose name I have already more than once 
had occasion to refer to, has often told me, that he was seldom more grie- 
ved, than when riding into Dumfries one fine summer's evening, about this 
time, to attend a county ball, he saw Burns walking alone, on the shady 
side of the principal street of the town, while the opposite side was gay 
with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the 
festivities of the night, not one of whom appeared willing to recognize him. 
The horseman dismounted and joined Burns, who, on his proposing to him 
to cross the street, said, " Nay, nay, my young friend, — that's all over 
now ;" and quoted, after a pause, some verses of Lady Grizzel Baillie's 
pathetic ballad, — 

" His bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow, 
His auld ane look'd better than mony ane's new ; 
But now he lets't wear ony way it will hing, 
And casts himsell dowie upon the corn-bing. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.' cxi 

" O were we young, as we ance hae been, 
We sud hae been galloping doun on yon green, 
And linking it ower the lilywhite lea, — 
And xvcrciia my heart light I wad die."* 

It was little In Burns's character to let his feelings on certain subjects, es- 
cape in this fashion. He, immediately after citing these verses, assumed 
the sprightliness of his most pleasing manner ; and taking his young friend 
home with him, entertained him very agreeably until the hour of the ball 
arrived, with a bowl of his usual potation, and Bonnie Jean's singing of 
some verses which he had recently composed. 

The untimely death of one who, had he lived to any thing like the usual 
term of human existence, might have done so much to increase his fame 
as a poet, and to purify and dignify his character as a man, was, it is too 
probable, hastened by his own intemperances and imprudences : but it 
seems to be extremely improbable, that, even if his manhood had been a 
course of saintlike virtue in all respects, the irritable and nervous bodily 
constitution which he inherited from his father, shaken as it was by the 
toils and miseries of his ill-starred youth, could have sustained, to any 
thing like the psalmist's " allotted span," the exhausting excitements of an 
intensely poetical temperament. Since the first pages of this narrative were 
sent to the press, I have heard from an old acquaintance of the bard, who 
often shared his bed with him at Mossgiel, that even at that early period, 
when intemperance assuredly had had nothing to do with the matter, those 
ominous symptoms of radical disorder in the digestive system, the " palpi- 
tation and suffocation" of which Gilbert speaks, were so regularly his noc- 
turnal visitants, that it was his custom to have a great tub of cold water 
by his bedside, into which he usually plunged more than once in the course 
of the night, thereby procuring instant, though but shortlived relief. On 
a frame thus originally constructed, and thus early tried with most se- 
vere afflictions, external and internal, what must not have been, under any 
subsequent course of circumstances, the effect of that exquisite sensibi- 
lity of mind, but for which the world would never have heard any thing 
either of the sins, or the sorrows, or the poetry of Burns ! 

" The fates and characters of the rhyming tribe," * (thus writes the 
poet himself), " often employ my thoughts when I am disposed to be me- 
lancholy. There is not, among all the martyrologies that ever were pen- 
ned, so rueful a narrative as the lives of the poets. — In the comparative 
view of wretches, the criterion is not what they are doomed to suffer, but 
how they are formed to bear. Take a being of our kind, give him a stronger 
imagination and a more delicate sensibility, which between them will ever 
engender a more ungovernable set of passions, than are the usual lot of 
man ; implant in him an irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, such as, 
arranging wild flowers in fantastical nosegays, tracing the grasshopper to 
his haunt by his chirping song, watching the frisks of the little minnows 
in the sunny pool, or hunting after the intrigues of butterflies — in short, 
send him adrift after some pursuit which shall eternally mislead him from 
the paths of lucre, and yet curse him with a keener relish than any man 
living for the pleasures that lucre can purchase ; lastly, fill up the measure 
of his woes by bestowing on him a spurning sense of his own dignity, and 
you have created a wight nearly as miserable as a poet." 

* liBtter to Miss Chalmers in 171)3. 
16 



cxii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

In these few short sentences, as it appears to me, Burns has traced his own 
character far better than any one else has done it since. — But with this lot 
what pleasures were not mingled ? — '< To you, Madam," he proceeds, " I 
need not recount the fairy pleasures the muse bestows to counterbalance 
this catalogue of evils. Bewitching poetry is like bewitching woman ; she 
has in all ages been accused of misleading mankind from the counsels of 
wisdom and the paths of prudence, involving them in difficulties, baiting 
them with poverty, branding them with infamy, and plunging them in the 
whirling vortex of ruin ; yet, where is the man but must own that all our 
happiness on earth is not worthy the name — that even the holy hermit's 
solitary prospect of pardisiacal bliss is but the glitter of a northern sun, ris- 
ing over a frozen region, compared with the many pleasures, the nameless 
raptures, that we owe to the lovely Queen of the heart of man !" 

It is common to say of those who over-indulge themselves in material 
stimulants, that they live fast ; what wonder that the career of the poet's 
thick-coming fancies should, in the immense majority of cases, be rapid 
too? 

That Burns lived fast, in both senses of the phrase, we have abundant 
evidence from himself; and that the more earthly motion was somewhat ac- 
celerated as it approached the close, we may believe, without finding it at all 
necessary to mingle anger with our sorrow. " Even in his earliest poems," 
as Mr. Wordsworth says, in a beautiful passage of his letter to Mr. Gray, 
" through the veil of assumed habits and pretended qualities, enough of 
the real man appears to show, that he was conscious of sufficient cause to 
dread his own passions, and to bewail his errors ! We have rejected as false 
sometimes in the latter, and of necessity as false in the spirit, many of the 
testimonies that others have borne against him : — but, by his own hand — 
in words the import of which cannot be mistaken — it has been recorded 
that the order of his life but faintly corresponded with the clearness of his 
views. It is probable that he would have proved a still greater poet if, by 
strength of reason, he could have controlled the propensities which his sen- 
sibility engendered ; but he would have been a poet of a diil^erent class : 
and certain it is, had that desirable restraint been early established, many 
peculiar beauties which enrich his verses could never have existed, and 
many accessary influences, which contribute greatly to their effect, would 
have been wanting. For instance, the momentous truth of the passage — 

" One point must still be greatly dark, 

The moving xchy they do it : 
And just as lamely can ye mark, 

How far perhaps they rue it. 

Then gently scan your brother man, 

Still gentlier sister woman — 
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang ; 

To step aside is human," 

could not possibly have been conveyed with such pathetic force by any 
poet that ever lived, speaking in his own voice ; unless it were felt that, 
like Burns, he was a man who preached from the text of his own errors ; 
and whose wisdom, beautiful as a flower that might have risen from seed 
sown from above, was in fact a scion from the root of personal suffering." 

In how far the " thoughtless foUies" of the poet did actually hasten his 
end, it is needless to conjecture. They had their share, unquestionably, 
along with other influences which it would be inhuman to characterise as 



I 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cxill 

mere follies — such, for example, as that general depression of spirits which 
haunted hiin from his youth, and, in all likelihood, sat more heavily on 
such a being as Burns than a man of plain common sense might guess, — or 
even a casual expression of discouraging tendency from the persons on 
whose good-will all ho})es of substantial advancement in the scale of world- 
ly promotion depended, — or that partial exclusion from the species of so- 
ciety our poet had been accustomed to adorn and delight, which, from 
however inadequate causes, certainly did occur during some of the latter 
years of his life. — All such sorrows as these must have acted with twofold 
tyranny upon Burns ; harassing, in the first place, one of the most sensitive 
minds that ever filled a human bosom, and, alas ! by consequence, tempting 
to additional excesses. How he struggled against the tide of his misery, let 
the following letter speak. — It was written February 25, 1794, and addres- 
sed to Mr. Alexander Cunningham, an eccentric being, but generous and 
faithful in his friendship to Burns, and, when Burns was no more, to his 
family. — " Canst thou minister," says the poet, " to a mind diseased ? 
Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tost on a sea of troubles, without 
one friendly star to guide her course, and dreading that the next surge may 
overwhelm her ? Canst thou give to a frame, tremblingly alive as the tor- 
tures of suspense, the stability and hardihood of the rock that braves the 
blast ? If thou canst not do the least of these, why would'st thou disturb 
me in my miseries, with thy inquiries after me? For these two months I 
have not been able to lift a pen. My constitution and frame were ah ori- 
fjine, blasted with a deep incurable taint of hypochondria, which poisons my 
existence. Of late a number of domestic vexations, and some pecuniary 
share in the ruin of these »**'« times — losses which, though trifling, were 
yet what I could ill bear, have so irritated me, that my feelings at times 
could only be envied by -a rep4'obate spirit listening to the sentence that 
dooms it to perdition. Are you dee}) in the language of consolation ? I 
have exhausted in reflection every topic of comfort. A heart at ease would 
have been charmed with my sentiments and reasonings ; but as to myself, I 
was like Judas Iscariot preaching the gospel ; he might melt and mould 
the hearts of those around him, but his own kept its native incorrigibility. 
Still there are two great pillars that bear us up, amid the wreck of misfor- 
tune and misery. The one is composed of the different modifications of a 
certain noble, stubborn something in man, known by the names of courage, 
fortitude, magnanimity. The other is made up of those feelings and sen- 
timents, which, however the sceptic may deny, or the enthusiast disfigure 
them, are yet, I am convinced, original and component parts of the human 
soul; tho^e senses of the mind, \^ \ m'dy ha allowed the expression, which 
connect us with, and link us to those awful obscure realities — an all-power- 
ful and equally beneficent God — and a world to come, beyond death and 
the grave. The first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams 
on the field ; — the last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds which 
time can never cure. 

" I do not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you and I ever talked 
on the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as the trick 
of the crafty few, to lead the undiscerning many; or at most as an uncer- 
tain obscurity, which mankind can never know any thing of, and with which 
they are fools if they give themselves much to do. Nor would I quarrel 
with a man for his irreligion, any more than I would for his want of a mu- 
sical ear. I would regret that he was shut out from what, to me and to 

17 



cxiv LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

©thers, were such superlative sources of enjoyment. It is in this point of view, 
and for this reason, that I will deeply imbue the mind of every child of 
mine with religion. If my son should happen to be a man of feeling, sen- 
timent, and taste, I shall thus add largely to his enjoyments. Let me flatter 
myself that this sweet little fellow who is just now running about my desk, 
will be a man of a melting, ardent, glowing heart ; and an imagination, de- 
lighted with the painter, and rapt with the poet. Let me figure him, 
wandering out in a sweet evening, to inhale the balmy gales, and enjoy the 
growing luxuriance of the spring ; himself the while in the blooming youth 
of life. He looks abroad on all nature, and through nature up to nature's 
God. His soul, by swift, delighted degrees, is rapt above this sublunary 
sphere, until he can be silent no longer, and bursts out into the glorious 
enthusiasm of Thomson, 

* These, as they change, Almighty Father, these 
Are hilt tlie varied God — The rolling year 
Is fuU of Thee ;' 

and so on, in all the spirit and ardour of that charming hymn. — These are 
no ideal pleasures ; they are real delights ; and I ask what of the delights 
among the sons of men are superior, not to say, equal to them? And they 
have this precious, vast addition, that conscious virtue stamps them for her 
own ; and lays hold on them to bring herself into the presence of a witness- 
ing, judging, and approving God." 

They who have been told that Burns was ever a degraded being — who 
have permitted themselves to believe that his only consolations were those 
of '* the opiate guilt applies to grief," will do well to pause over this noble 
letter and judge for themselves. The enemy under which he was destined 
to sink, had already beaten in the outworks of his constitution when these 
lines were penned. The reader has already had occasion to observe, that 
Burns had in those closing years of his life to struggle almost continually 
with pecuniary difficulties, than which nothing couid have been more like- 
ly to pour bitterness intolerable into the cup of his existence. His lively 
imagination exaggerated to itself every real evil ; and this among, and per- 
haps above, all the rest ; at least, in many of his letters we find him alluding 
to the probability of his being arrested for debts, which we now know to 
have been of very trivial amount at the worst, which we also know he him- 
self lived to discharge to the utmost farthing, and in regard to which it is 
impossible to doubt that his personal friends in Dumfries would have at all 
times been ready to prevent the law taking its ultimate course. This last 
consideration, however, was one which would have given slender relief to 
Burns. How he shrunk with horror and loathing from the sense of pecu- 
niary obligation, no matter to whom, we have had abundant indications al- 
ready. 

The following extract from one of his letters to Mr. Macmurdo, dated 
December 1793, will speak for itself: — " Sir, it is said that we take the 
greatest liberties with our greatest friends, and I pay myself a very high 
compliment in the manner in which I am going to apply the remark. I 
have owed you money longer than ever I owed it to any man. — Here is 
Ker's account, and here are six guineas ; and now, I don't owe a shilling 
to man, or woman either. But for these damned dirty, dog's-eared httle 
pages, (bank-notes), I had done myself the honour to have waited on 
you long ago. Independent of the obligations your hospitality has laid 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cxv 

me under, the consciousness of your superiority in the rank of man and 
gentleman of itself was fully as much as 1 could ever make head against ; 
but to owe you money too, was more than I could face. 

The question naturally arises : Burns was all this while pouring out his 
beautiful songs for the Museum of Johnson and the greater work of Thom- 
son ; liow did he happen to derive no pecuniary advantages from this con- 
tinual exertion of his genius in a form of composition so eminently calcu- 
lated for popularity ? Nor, indeed, is it an easy matter to answer this very 
obvious question. The poet himself, in a letter to Mr. Carfrae, dated 
1789, speaks thus : — " The profits of the labours of a man of genius are, I 
hope, as honourable as any profits whatever ; and Mr. Mylne's relations 
are most justly entitled to that honest harvest which fate has denied him- 
self to reap." And yet, so far from looking to Mr. Johnson for any pecu- 
niary remuneration for the very laborious part he took in his work, it ap- 
pears from a passage in Cromek's Reliques, that the poet asked a single 
copy of the Museum to give to a fair friend, by way of a great favour to 
himself — and that that copy and his own were really all he ever received 
at the hands of the publisher. Of the secret history of Johnson and his 
book I know nothing ; but the Correspondence of Burns with Mr. Thomson 
contains curious enough details concerning his connexion with that gentle- 
man's more important undertaking. At the outset, September 1792, we 
find Mr. Thomson saying, " We will esteem your poetical assistance a 
particular favour, besides paying any reasonable price you shall please to 
demand for it. Profit is quite a secondary consideration with us, and we 
are resolved to save neither pains nor expense on the publication." To 
which Burns replies immediately, " As to any remuneration, you may think 
my songs either above or below price ; for they shall absolutely be the one 
or the other. In the honest enthusiasm with which I embark in your un- 
dertaking, to talk of money, wages, fee, hire, &c. would be downright pros- 
titution of soul. A proof of each of the songs that I compose or amend I 
shall receive as a favour. In the rustic phrase of the season, Gude speed 
the warlu' The next time we meet with any hint as to money matters in 
the Correspondence is in a letter of Mr. Thomson, 1st July 1793, where 
he says, " I cannot express how much I am obliged to you for the exqui- 
site new songs you are sending me ; but thanks, my friend, are a poor re- 
turn for what you have done : as I shall be benefited by the publication, 
you must suffer me to enclose a small mark of my gratitude, and to repeat 
it afterwards when I find it convenient. Do not return it, for, by Heaven, 
if you do, our correspondence is at an end." To which letter (it inclosed 
£5) Burns thus replies : — " I assure you, my dear Sir, that you truly hurt 
me with your pecuniary parcel. It degrades mo in my own eyes. How- 
ever, to return it would savour of affectation ; but as to any more traffic of 
that debtor and creditor kind, I swear by that honour which crowns the 
upright statue of Robert Burns's integrity — on the least motion of it, I 
will indignantly spurn the by-past transaction, and from that moment com- 
mence entire stranger to you. Burns's character for generosity of senti- 
ment and independence of mind will, 1 trust, long outlive any of his wants 
which the cold unfeeling ore can supply : at least, I will take care tliat 
such a character he shall deserve." — In November 1794, we find Mr. Thom- 
son writing to Burns, " Do not, I beseech you, return any books." — In May 
1 795, " You really make me blush when you tell me you have not merited 
the drawing from me ;" (this was a drawing of The Cottars Saturday Night, 



cxvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

i 

by Allan) ; " I do not think I can ever repay you, or sufficiently esteem 
and respect you, for the liberal and kind manner in which you have enter- 
ed into the spirit of my undertaking, which could not have been perfected 
without you. So I beg you would not make a fool of me again by speak- 
ing of obligation." In February 1796, we have Burns acknowledging a 

" handsome elegant present to Mrs. B ," which was a worsted shawl. 

Lastly, on the 12th July of the same year, (that is, little more than a week 
before Burns died), he writes to Mr. Thomson in these terms : — " After 
all my boasted independence, cursed necessity compels me to implore you 
for five pounds. A cruel of a haberdasher, to whom I owe an ac- 
count, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process, 
and will infallibly put me into jail. Do, for God's sake, send me that 
sum, and that by return of post. Forgive me this earnestness ; but the hor- 
rors of a jail have put me half distwacted. — I do not ask this gratuitously ; 
for, upon returning health, I hereby promise and engage to furnish you 
with five pounds worth of the neatest song genius you have seen." To 
which ?vTr. Thomson replies — >" Ever since I received your melancholy let- 
ter by Mrs. Hyslop, I have been ruminating in what manner 1 could en- 
deavour to alleviate your sufferings. Again and again I thought of a pe- 
cuniary offer ; but the recollection of one of your letters on this subject, 
and the fear of offending your independent spirit, checked my resolution. 
I thank you heartily, therefore, for the frankness of your letter of the ] 2th, 
and with great pleasure enclose a draft for the very sum I proposed send- 
ing. Would I were Chancellor of the Exchequer but one day for your 

sake ! Pray, my good Sir, is it not possible for you to muster a volume 

of poetry ? Do not shun this method of obtaining the value of 

your labour ; remember Pope published the Iliad by subscription. Think 
of this, my dear Burns, and do not think me intrusive with my advice." 

Such are the details of this matter, as recorded in the correspondence 
of the two individuals concerned. Some time after Burns's death, Mr. 
Thomson was attacked on account of his behaviour to the poet, in a novel 
called Nubilia. In Professor Walker's Memoirs of Burns, which appeared 
in 1816, Mr. Thomson took the opportunity of defending himself thus : — 

" I have been attacked with much bitterness, and accused of not endea- 
vouring to remmierate Burns for the songs which he wrote for my collec- 
tion ; although there is the clearest evidence of the contrary, both in the 
printed correspondence between the poet and me, and in the public testi- 
mony of Dr. Currie. My assailant, too, w ithout knowing any thing of the 
matter, states, that I had enriched myself by the labours of Burns ; and, 
of course, that my want of generosity was inexcusable. Now, the fact is, 
that notwithstanding the united labours of all the men of genius who have 
enriched my collection, I am not even yet compensated for the precious 
time consumed by me in poring over musty volumes, and in corresponding 
with ever)^ amateur and poet by whose means I expected to make any va- 
luable additions to our national music and song ; — for the exertion and mo- 
ney it cost njc to obtain accompaniments from the greatest masters of har- 
mony in Vienna; — and for the sums paid to engravers, printers, and others. 
On this subject, the testimony of Mr. Preston in London, a man of un- 
questionable and well-known character, wlio has printed the music for 
every copy of my work, may be more satisfactory than any thing I can 
say: In August 1809, he wrote me as follows : ' I am concerned at the 
very unwarrantable attack which has been made upon you by the author 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNfS. cxvii 

oC Nuhilia ; nothing could be more unjust tlian to say you had enriched 
yourself by Burns's labours; for the whole concern, though it includes the 
labours of Haydn, has scarcely afforded a compensation for the various ex- 
penses, and for the time employed on the work. When a work obtains 
any celebrity, publishers are generally supposed to derive a profit ten times 
beyond the reality ; the sale is greatly magnified, and the expenses are not 
in the least taken into consideration. It is truly vexatious to be so grossly 
and scandalously abused for conduct, the very reverse of which has been 
manifest through the whole transaction.' — Were I the sordid man that the 
anonymous author calls me, I had a most inviting opportunity to profit 
much more than I did by the l3^rics of our great bard. He had written 
above fifty songs expressly for my work ; they were in my possession un- 
published at his death ; I had the right and the power of retaining them 
till I should be ready to publish them ; but when I was informed that an 
edition of the poet's works was projected for the benefit of his family, I put 
them in immediate possession of the whole of his songs, as well as letters, 
and thus enabled Dr. Currie to complete the four volumes which were sold 
for the family's behoof to Messrs. Cadell and Davies. And I have the sa- 
tisfaction of knowing, that the most zealous friends of the family, Mr. Cun- 
ninghame, Mr. Syme, and Dr. Currie, and the poet's own brother, consi- 
dered my sacrifice of the prior right of publishing the songs, as no ungrate- 
ful return for the disinterested and liberal conduct of the poet. Accord- 
ingly, Mr. Gilbert Burns, in a letter to me, which alone might suifice for 
an answer to all the novelist's abuse, thus expresses himself : — ' If ever 
I come to Edinburgh, I will certainly call on a person whose handsome con- 
duct to my brother's family has secured my esteem, and confirmed me in 
the opinion, that musical taste and talents have a close connexion with the 
harmony of the moral feelings.' Nothing is farther from my thoughts 
than to claim any merit for what I did. I never would have said a word 
on the subject, but for the harsh and groundless accusation which has been 
brought forward, either by ignorance or animosity, and which I have long 
suffered to remain unnoticed, from my great dislike to any public ap- 
pearance." 

This statement of Mr. Thomson supersedes the necessity of any addi- 
tional remarks, (writes Professor Walker). When the public is satisfied; 
when the relations of Burns are grateful ; and, above all, when the delicate 
mind of Mr. Thomson is at peace with itself in contemplating his conduct, 
there can be no necessity for a nameless novelist to contradict them. 

So far, Mr. Walker : — Why Burns, who was of opinion, when he wrote 
his letter to Mr. Carfrae, that " no profits are more honourable than those 
of the labours of a man of genius," and whose own notions of independence 
had sustained no shock in the receipt of hundreds of pounds from Creech, 
should have spurned the suggestion of pecuniary recompense from Thom- 
son, it is no easy matter to exj)lain : nor do I profess to understand why Mr. 
Thomson took so little pains to argue the matter in limine yx'ith the poet, 
and convince him, that the time which he himself considered as fairly en- 
titled to be paid for by a conmion bookseller, ought of right to be valued 
and acknowledged on similar terms by the editor and proprietor of a book 
containing both songs and music. They order these things differently 
now : a living lyric poet whom none will place in a higher rank than Burns, 
has long, it is understood, been in the habit of receiving about as much 
money annually for an annval handful of songs, as was ever paid to our 
bard for the whole body of his writings. 



cxvlli LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Of the Increasing irritability of our poet's temperament, amidst those trou- 
bles, external and internal, that preceded his last illness, his letters furnish 
proofs, to dwell on which could only inflict unnecessary pain. Let one ex- 
ample suffice. — " Sunday closes a j^eriod of our curst revenue business, 
and may probably keep me employed with my pen until noon. Fine em- 
ployment for a poet's pen ! Here I sit, altogether Novemberish, a d 

melange of fretfulness and melancholy ; not enough of the one to rouse me 
to passion, nor of the other to repose me in torpor ; my soul flouncing and 
fluttering round her tenement, like a wild finch, caught amid the horrors 
of winter, and newly thrust into a cage. Well, I am persuaded that it 
was of me the Hebrew sage prophesied, when he foretold — ' And behold, 
on whatsoever this man doth set his heart, it shall not prosper !' Pray that 
wisdom and bliss be more frequent visitors of R. B." 

Towards the close of 1795 Burns was, as has been previously mention- 
ed, employed as an acting Supervisor of Excise. This was apparently a 
step to a permanent situation of that higher and more lucrative class ; and 
from thence, there was every reason to believe, the kind patronage of Mr. 
Graham might elevate him yet farther. These hopes, however, were mingl- 
ed and darkened with sorrow. For four months of that year his youngest 
child lingered through an illness of which every week promised to be the 
last ; and she was finally cut off when the poet, who had watched her with 
anxious tenderness, was from home on professional business. This was a 
severe blow, and his own nerves, though as yet he had not taken any seri- 
ous alarm about his ailments, M^ere ill fitted to withstand it. 

" There had need," he writes to Mrs. Dunlop, 15th December, " there 
had much need be many pleasures annexed to the states of husband and 
father, for God knows, they have many peculiar cares. I cannot describe 
to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties frequently give me. I see a 
train of helpless little folks ; me and my exertions all their stay ; and on 
what a brittle thread does the life of man hang ! If I am nipt oif at the 
command of fate, even in all the vigour of manhood as I am, such things 
happen every day — gracious God ! what would become of my little flock ! 
'Tis here that I envy your people of fortune. — A father on his death-bed, 
taking an everlasting leave of his children, has indeed woe enough ; but 
the man of competent fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency 
and friends ; while I — but I shall run distracted if I think any longer on 
the subject." 

To the same lady, on the 29th of the month, he, after mentioning his 
supervisorship, and saying that at last his political sins seemed to be for- 
given him — goes on in this ominous tone — " What a transient business is 
life ! Very lately I was a boy ; but t'other day a young man ; and I already 
begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming fast over 
my frame." We may trace the melancholy sequel in the few following 
extracts. 

" Slst January 1796. — I have lately drunk deep of the cup of afflic- 
tion. The autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling child, and 
that at a distance too, and so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay 
the last duties to her. I had scarcely begun to recover from that shock, 
when I became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and 
long the die spun doubtful ; until, after many weeks of a sick-bed, it seems 
to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room, and 
once indeed have been before my own door in the street. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cxix 

" When pleasure fascinates the mental sight, 
Affliction purifies the visual ray. 
Religion hails the drear, the untried night. 
That shuts, for ever shuts ! life's doubtful day." 

But a few days after this, Burns was so exceedingly imprudent as to join 
a festive circle at a tavern dinner, where he remained till about three in the 
morning. The weather was severe, and he, being much intoxicated, took 
no precaution in thus exposing his debilitated frame to its influence. It 
has been said, that he fell asleep upon the snow on his way home. It 
is certain, that next morning he was sensible of an icy numbness through 
all his joints — that his rheumatism returned with tenfold force upon him — 
and that from that unhappy hour, his mind brooded ominously on the fatal 
issue. The course of medicine to which he submitted was violent ; con- 
finement, accustomed as he had been to much bodily exercise, preyed 
miserably on all his powers ; he drooped visibly, and all the hopes of his 
friends, that health would return with summer, were destined to disap- 
pointment. 

" ithJune 1796.* — I am in such miserable health as to be utterly inca- 
pable of showing my loyalty in any way. Rackt as I am with rheuma- 
tisms, I meet every face with a greeting like that of Balak and Balaam, — 
* Come curse me Jacob ; and come defy me Israel.' " 

'' 1th July I fear the voice of the Bard will soon be heard among you 

no more. — For these eight or ten months I have been ailing, sometimes 
bed-fast and sometimes not ; but these last three months I have been tor- 
tured with an excruciating rheumatism which has reduced me to nearly the 
last stage. You actually would not know me if you saw me — pale, emaci- 
ated, and so feeble, as occasionally to need help from my chair, — My spirits 
fled ! fled ! But I can no more on the subject." 

This last letter was addressed to Mr. Cunningham of Edinburgh, from 
the small village of Brow on the Solway Frith, about ten miles from Dum- 
fries, to which the poet removed about the end of June ; " the medical 
folks," as he says, " having told him that his last and only chance was 
bathing, country (juarters, and riding." In separating himself by their ad- 
vice from his family for these purposes, he carried with him a heavy bur- 
den of care. *' The duce of the matter," he writes, " is this ; when an ex- 
ciseman is off duty, his salary is reduced. What way, in the name of thrift, 
shall I maintain myself and keep a horse in country quarters on j£35 ?" 
He implored his friends in Edinburgh, to make interest with the Board to 
grant him his full salary ; if they do not, I must lay my account with an 
exit truly e7i pude — if 1 die not of disease, I must perish with hunger." 

Mrs. Riddell of Glenridilcl, a beautiful and very accomplished woman, 
to whom many of Burns's most interesting letters, in the latter years of his 
life, were addressed, happened to be in the neighbourhood of 13row when 
Burns reached his bathing quarters, and exerted herself to make him as 
comfortable as circumstances permitted. Having sent her carriage for his 
conveyance, the poet visited her on the 3tli July; and she has, in a letter 
published by Dr. Currie, thus described his appearance and conversation 
on that occasion : — 

^* I was struck with his appearance on entering the room. The stamp 
of death \?as impressed on his features. He seemed already touching the 
brink of eternity. His first salutation was, * Well, Madam, have you any 

.* The birth-duy of George III. 



cxx LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

commands for the other world ?* I rephed that it seemed a doubtful case 
which of us should be there soonest, and that I hoped he would yet live to 
write my epitaph. (I was then in a poor state of health.) He looked in my 
face with an air of great kindness, and expressed his concern at seeing me 
look so ill, with his accustomed sensibility. At table he ate little or no- 
thing, and he complained of having entirely lost the tone of his stomach. 
We had a long and serious conversation about his present situation, and 
the approaching termination of all his earthly prospects. He spoke of his 
death without any of the ostentation of philosophy, but with firmness as 
well as feeling — as an event likely to happen very soon, and which gave 
him concern chiefly from leaving his four children so young and unprotect- 
ed, and his wife in so interesting a situation — in the hourly expectation of 
lying-in of a fifth. . He mentioned, with seeming pride and satisfaction, 
the promising genius of his eldest son, and the flattering marks of appro- 
bation he had received from his teachers, and dwelt particularly on his 
hopes of that boy's future conduct and merit. His anxiety for his family 
seemed to hang heavy upon him, and the more perhaps from the reflection 
that he had not done them all the justice he was so well qualified to do. 
Passing from this subject, he showed great concern about the care of his lite- 
rary fame, and particularly the publication of his posthumous works. He 
said he was well aware that his death would occasion some noise, and that 
every scrap of his writings would be revived against him to the injury of his 
future reputation : that letters and verses written with unguarded and im- 
proper freedom, and which he earnestly wished to have buried in oblivion, 
would be handed about by idle vanity or malevolence, when no dread of his 
resentment would restrain them, or prevent the censures of shrill-tongued 
malice, or the insidious sarcasms of envy, from pouring forth all their ve- 
nom to blast his fame. He lamented that he had written many epigrams 
on persons against whom he entertained no enmity, and whose characters 
he should be sorry to wound ; and many indifferent poetical pieces, which 
he feared would now, with all their imperfections on their head, be thrust 
upon the world. On this account he deeply regretted having deferred to 
put his papers into a state of arrangement, as he was now quite incapable of 
the exertion. — The conversation was kept up with great evenness and ani- 
mation on his side. I have seldom seen his mind greater or more collected. 
There was frequently a considerable degree of vivacity in his sallies, and 
they would probably have had a greater share, had not the concern and 
dejection I could not disguise, damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed 
not unwilling to indulge. — We parted about sun-set on the evening of that 
day (the 5th of July 1796) ; the next day I saw him again, and we parted 
to meet no more !" 

I do not know the exact date of the following letter to Mrs Burns : — 
" Brow, Thursday. — My dearest Love, I delayed writing until I could 
tell you what effect sea-bathing was likely to produce. It would be injus- 
tice to deny that it has eased my pains, and I think has strengthened me ; 
but my appetite is still extremely bad. No flesh nor fish can I swallow : 
porridge and milk arc the only things I can taste. I am very happy to 
hear, by Miss Jess Lewars, that you are all well. My very best and kind- 
est compliments to her and to all the children. I will see you on Sunday, 
Your affectionate husband, R. B." 

Therc^is a very affecting letter to Gilbert, dated the 7th, in which the 
poet says, " I am dangerously ill, and not likely to get better God keep 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cx\i 

my wife and children." On the 12th, he wrote the letter to Mr. George 
Thomson, above quoted, requesting £5 ; and, on the same day, he penned 
also the following — the last letter that he ever wrote— to his friend Mrs. 
Dunlop. 

" Madam, I have written you so often, without receiving any answer, 
that I would not trouble you again, but for the circumstances in which I 
am. An illness which has long hung about me, in all probability will speed- 
ily send me beyond that bourne whence no traveller returns. Your friend- 
ship, with which for many years you honoured me, was a friendship 
dearest to my soul. Your conversation, and especially your correspondence, 
were at once highly entertaining and instructive. With what pleasure did 
I use to break up the seal ! The remembrance yet adds one pulse more to 
my poor palpitating heart. Farewell ! ! !" 

I give the following anecdote in the words of Mr. M'Diarmid :* — 
" Rousseau, we all know, when dying, wished to be carried into the open 
air, that he might obtain a parting look of the glorious orb of day. A night 
or two before Burns left Brow, he drank tea with Mrs. Craig, widow of the 
minister of Ruthwell. His altered appearance excited much silent sympa- 
thy ; and the evening being beautiful, and the sun shining brightly through 
the casement, Miss Craig (now Mrs. Henry Duncan), was afraid the light 
might be too much for him, and rose with the view of letting down the win- 
dow blinds. Burns immediately guessed what she meant ; and, regarding 
the young lady with a look of great benignity, said, ♦ Thank you, my dear, 
for your kind attention ; but, oh, let him shine ; he will not shine long for 
me.' " 

On the 18th, despairing of any benefit from the sea, our poet came back 
to Dumfries. Mr. Allan Cunningham, who saw him arrive " visibly chang- 
ed in his looks, being with difficulty able to stand upright, and reach his 
own door," has given a striking picture, in one of his essays, of the state of 
popular feeling in the town during the short space which intervened between 
his return and his death. — " Dumfries was like a besieged place. It was 
known he was dying, and the anxiety, not of the rich and learned only, but 
of the mechanics and peasants, exceeded all belief. Wherever two or 
three people stood together, their talk was of Burns, and of him alone. 
They spoke of his history — of his person — of his works — of his family — of 
his fame — and of his untimely and approaching fate, with a warmth and an 
enthusiasm which will ever endear Dumfries to my remembrance. All that 
he said or was saying — the opinions of the physicians, (and Maxwell was a 
kind and a skilful one), were eagerly caught up and reported from street to 
street, and from house to house." 

" His good humour," Cunningham adds, " was unruffled, and his wit ne- 
ver forsook him. He looked to one of his fellow volunteers with a smile, 
as he stood by the bed-side with his eyes wet, and said, ' John, don't let 
the awkward squad fire over me.' He repressed with a smile the hopes of 
his friends, and told them he had lived long enough. As his life drew near 
a close, the eager yet decorous solicitude of his fellow townsmen increased. 
It is the practice of the young men of Dumfries to meet in the streets 
during the hours of remission from labour, and by these means I had an 
opportunity of witnessing the general solicitude of all ranks and of all ages. 
His differences with them on some important points were forgotten and for- 

* I take the opportunity of once more acknowledging my great obligations to this gentle* 
man, who is, I understand, connected by his marriage with the family of the poet. 

18 



cxxii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

given ; they thought only of his genius — of the delight his compositions 
had diffused — and they talked of him with the same awe as of some depart- 
ing spirit, whose voice was to gladden them no more." * 

" A tremour now pervaded his frame," says Dr. Currie, on the authority 
of the physician who attended him ; " his tongue was parched; and his mind 
sunk into delirium, when not roused by conversation. On the second and 
third day the fever increased, and his strength diminished." On the fourth, 
July 21st 1796, Robert Burns died. 

" I went to see him laid out for the grave," says Mr. Allan Cunning- 
ham ; " several elder people were with me. He lay in a plain unadorned 
coffin, with a linen sheet drawn over his face ; and on the bed, and around 
the body, herbs and flowers were thickly strewn, according to the usage of 
the country. He was wasted somewhat by long illness ; but death had not 
increased the swarthy hue of his face, which was uncommonly dark and 
deeply marked — his broad and open brow was pale and serene, and around 
it his sable hair lay in masses, slightly touched with grey. The room 
where he lay was plain and neat, and the simplicity of the poet's humble 
dwelling pressed the presence of death more closely on the heart than if 
his bier had been embellished by vanity, and covered with the blazonry of 
high ancestry and rank. We stood and gazed on him in silence for the 
space of several minutes — we went, and others succeeded us — not a whis- 
per was heard. This was several days after his death." 

On the 23th of July, the remains of the poet were removed to the Trades 
Hall, where they lay in state until the next morning. The volunteers of 
Dumfries were determined to inter their illustrious comrade (as indeed he 
had anticipated) with military honours. The chief persons of the town and 
neighbourhood resolved to make part of the procession ; and not a few tra- 
velled from great distances to witness the solemnity. The streets were 
lined by the Fencible Infantry of Angusshire, and the Cavalry of the Cinque 
Ports, then quarted at Dumfries, whose commander. Lord Hawksbury, (af- 
terwards Earl of Liverpool), although he had always declined a personal 
introduction to the poet, f officiated as one of the chief mourners. " The 
multitude who accompanied Burns to the grave, went step by step," says 
Cunningham, " with the chief mourners. They might amount to ten or 
twelve thousand. Not a word was heard .... It was an impressive and 
mournful sight to see men of all ranks and persuasions and opinions ming- 
ling as brothers, and stepping side by side down the streets of Dumfries, 
with the remains of him who had sung of their loves and joys and domes- 
tic endearments, with a truth and a tenderness which none perhaps have 
since equalled. I could, indeed, have wished the military part of the pro- 
cession away. The scarlet and gold — the banners displayed — the mea- 
sured step, and the military array — with the sounds of martial instruments 
of music, had no share in increasing the solemnity of the burial scene ; and 
had no connexion with the poet. I looked on it then, and I consider it 
now, as an idle ostentation, a piece of superfluous state which might have 
been spared, more especially as his neglected, and traduced, and insulted 
spirit had experienced no kindness in the body from those lofty people who 

are now proud of being numbered as his coevals and countrymen 

I found myself at the brink of the poet's grave, into which he was about to 
descend for ever. There was a pause among the mourners, as if loath to 

* In the London Magazine, 1824. Article, " Robert Burns and Lord Byron.*' 
•f So Mr. Syme has informed Mr. M'Diamiid, 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cxxiii 

part with Ills remains ; and when lie was at last lowered, and the first sho- 
velful of earth sounded on liis coffin lid, I looked up and saw tears on many 
cheeks where tears were not usual. 'J1ie volunteers justified the fears of 
their comrade, by three ragged and straggling volleys. The earth was 
heaped up, the green sod laid over him, and the multitude stood gaz- 
ing on the grave for some minutes' space, and then melted silently away. 
The day was a fine one, the sun was almost without a cloud, and not a 
drop of rain fell from dawn to twilight. I notice this, not from any con- 
currence in the common superstition, that ' happy is the corpse which the 
rain rains on,' but to confute the pious fraud of a religious Magazine, 
which made Heaven express its wrath, at the interment of a profane poet, 
in thunder, in lightning, and in rain." 

During the funeral solemnity, Mrs. Burns was seized with the pains of 
labour, and gave birth to a posthumous son, who quickly followed his fa- 
ther to- the grave. Mr. Cunningham describes the appearance of the fa- 
mily, when they at last emerged from their home of sorrow : — " A weep- 
ing widow and four helpless sons ; they came into the streets in their mourn- 
ings, and public sympathy was awakened afresh. I shall never forget the 
looks of his boys, and the compassion which they excited. The poet's life 
had not been without errors, and such errors, too, as a wife is slow in for- 
giving ; but he was honoured then, and is honoured now, by the unaliena- 
ble affection of his wife, and the world repays her prudence and her love 
by its regard and esteem." 

Immediately after the poet's death, a subscription was opened for the 
benefit of his family ; Mr. Miller of Dalswinton, Dr. Maxwell, Mr. Syme, 
Mr. Cunningham, and Mr. M'Murdo, becoming trustees for the application 
of the money. Many names from other parts of Scotland appeared in the 
lists, and not a few from England, especially London and Liverpool. Seven 
hundred pounds were in this way collected ; an additional sum was for- 
warded from India ; and the profits of Dr. Currie's Life and Edition of 
Burns were also considerable. The result has been, that the sons of the 
poet received an excellent education, and that Mrs. Burns has continued 
to reside, enjoying a decent independence, in the house where the poet 
died, situated in what is now, by the authority of the Magistrates of Dum- 
fries, called Burns' Street. 

" Of the (four surviving) sons of the poet," says their uncle Gilbert in, 
1820, " Robert, the eldest, is placed as a clerk in the Stamp Office, Lon- 
don, (Mr. Burns still remains in that establishment), Francis Wallace, the 
second, died in 1803 ; William Nicoll, the third, went to Madras in 1811 ; 
and James Glencairn, the youngest, to Bengal in 1812, both as cadets m 
the Honourable Company's service." These young gentlemen have all, it 
is believed, conducted themselves through life in a manner highly honour- 
able to themselves, and to the name which they bear. One of them, 
(James), as soon as his circumstances permitted, settled a liberal annuity 
on his estimable mother, which she still survives to enjoy. 

The great poet himself, whose name is enough to ennoble his children's 
children, was, to the eternal disgrace of his country, suffered to live and 
die in penury, and, as far as such a creature could be degraded by any ex- 
ternal circumstances, in degradation. Who can open the page of Burns, 
and remember without a blush, that the author of such verses, the human 
being whose breast glowed with such feelings, was doomed to earn mere 
bread for his children by casting up the stock of publicans' cellars, and rid- 



cxxiv LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

ing over moors and mosses in quest of smuggling stills ? The subscription 
for his poems was, for the time, large and liberal, and perhaps absolves the 
gentry of Scotland as individuals ; but that some strong movement of in- 
dignation did not spread over the whole kingdom, when it was known that 
Robert Burns, after being caressed and flattered by the noblest and most 
learned of his countrymen, was about to be established as a cbmmon ganger 
among the wilds of Nithsdale — and that, after he was so established, no 
interference from a higher quarter arrested that unworthy career : — these 
are circumstances which must continue to bear heavily on the memory of 
that generation of Scotsmen, and especially of those who then adminis- 
tered the public patronage of Scotland. 

In defence, or at least in palliation, of this national crime, two false ar- 
guments, the one resting on facts grossly exaggerated, the other having no 
foundation whatever either on knowledge or on wisdom, have been rashly 
set up, and arrogantly as well as ignorantly maintained. To the one, 
namely, that public patronage would have been wrongfully bestowed on the 
Poet, because the Exciseman was a political partizan, it is hoped the de- 
tails embodied in this narrative have supplied a sufficient answer : had the 
matter been as bad as the boldest critics have ever ventured to insinuate, 
Sir VV'^alter Scott's answer would still have remained — " this partizan was 
Burns." The other argument is a still more heartless, as well as absurd 
one ; to wit, that from the moral character and habits of the man, no pa- 
tronage, however liberal, could have influenced and controlled his conduct, 
so as to work lasting and effective improvement, and lengthen his life by 
raising it more nearly to the elevation of his genius. This is mdeed a can- 
did and a generous method of judging ! Are imprudence and intemperance, 
then, found to increase usually in proportion as the worldly circumstances 
of men are easy ? Is not the very opposite of this doctrine acknowledged 
by almost all that have ever tried the reverses of Fortune's wheel them- 
selves — by all that have contemplated, from an elevation not too high for 
sympathy, the usual course of manners, when their fellow creatures either 
encounter or live in constant apprehension of 

'* The thousand ills that rise where money fails, 
Debts, threats, and duns, bills, baihfFs, writs, and jails ?" 

To such mean miseries the latter years of Burns's life were exposed, not 
less than his early youth, and after what natural buoyancy of animal spirits 
he ever possessed, had sunk under the influence of time, which, surely 
bringing experience, fails seldom to bring care also and sorrow, to spirits 
more mercurial than his ; and in what bitterness of heart he submitted to 
his fate, let his own burning words once more tell us. " Take," says he, 
writing to one who never ceased to be his friend — " take these two guineas, 
and place them over against that ****** account of yours, which has gag- 
ged my mouth these five or six months ! I can as little write good things 
as apologies to the man I owe money to. O, the supreme curse of mak- 
ing three guineas do the business of five ! Poverty ! thou half-sister of 
death, thou cousin-german of hell ! Oppressed by thee, the man of senti- 
ment, whose heart glows with independence, and melts with sensibility, 
inly pines under the neglect, or writhes in bitterness of soul, under the 
contumely of arrogant, unfeeling wealth. Oppressed by thee, the son of 
genius, whose ill-starred ambition plants him at the tables of the fashion- 
able and polite, must see, in suffering silence, his remark neglected, and 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cxxv 

his person despised, while shallow greatness, in his idiot attempts at wit, 
shall meet with countenance and applause. Nor is it only the famiJy of 
worth that have reason to complain of thee ; the children of folly and vice, 
though, in common with thee, the offspring of evil, smart equally under 
thy rod. The man of unfortunate disposition and neglected education, is 
condemned as a fool for his dissipation, despised and shunned as a needy 
wretch, when his follies, as usual, bring him to want ; and when his neces- 
sities drive him to dishonest practices, he is abhorred as a miscreant, and 
perishes by the justice of his country. But far otherwise is the lot of the 
man of family and fortune. His early follies and extravagance, are spirit 
and fire ; his consequent wants, are the embarrassments of an honest 
fellow ; and when, to remedy the matter, he has gained a legal commis- 
sion to plunder distant provinces, or massacre peaceful nations, he returns, 
perhaps, laden with the spoils of rapine and murder ; lives wicked and 
respected, and dies a ******* and a lord ! — Nay, worst of all, alas for 
helpless woman ! the needy prostitute, who has shivered at the corner of 
the street, waiting to earn the wages of casual prostitution, is left neglect- 
ed and insulted, ridden down by the chariot wheels of the coroneted rip, 
hurrying on to the guilty assignation ; she, who, without the same neces- 
sities to plead, riots nightly in the same guilty trade. — Well : divines may 
say of it what they please, but execretion is to the mind, what phlebotomy 
is to the body ; the vital sluices of both are wonderfully relieved by their 
respective evacuations." * 

In such evacuations of indignant spleen the proud heart of many an un- 
fortunate genius, besides this, has found or sought relief: and toother 
more dangerous indulgences, the affliction of such sensitive spirits had of- 
ten, ere his time, condescended. The list is a long and a painful one ; and 
it includes some names that can claim but a scanty share in the apology of 
Burns. Addison himself, the elegant, the philosophical, the religious Ad- 
dison, must be numbered with these offenders : — Jonson, Cotton, Prior, 
Parnell, Otway, Savage, all sinned in the same sort, and the transgressions 
of them all have been leniently dealt with, in comparison with those of one 
whose genius was probably greater than any of theirs ; his appetites more 
fervid, his temptations more abundant, his repentance more severe. The 
beautiful genius of Collins sunk under similar contaminations ; and those 
who have from dullness of head, or sourness of heart, joined in the too ge- 
neral clamour against Burns, may learn a lesson of candour, of mercy, and 
of justice, from the language in which one of the best of men, and loftiest 
of moralists, has commented on frailties that hurried a kindred spirit to a 
like untimely grave. 

" In a long continuance of poverty, and long habits of dissipation," says 
Johnson, " it cannot be expected that any character should be exactly uni- 
form. That this man, wise and virtuous as he was, passed always unen- 
tangled through the snares of life, it would be prejudice and temerity to 
affirm : but it may be said that he at least preserved the source of action 
unpolluted, that his principles were never shaken, that his distinctions of 
right and wrong were never confounded, and that his faults had nothing of 
malignity or design, but proceeded from some unexpected pressure or ca- 
sual temptation. Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once de- 
lighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tenderness." 

• Letter to Mr. Peter HUl, bookseller, Edinburgh. General Correspondence, p. 328. 



cxxvi LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Burns was an honest man : after all his struggles, he owed no man a 
shilling when he died. His heart was always warm and his hand open. 
" His charities," says Mr. Gray, " were great beyond his means ;" and I 
have to thank Mr. Allan Cunningham for the following anecdote, for which 
I am sure every reader will thank him too. Mr. Maxwell of Teraughty, 
an old, austere, sarcastic gentleman, who cared nothing about poetry, used 
to say when the Excise-books of the district were produced at the meet- 
ings of the Justices, — " Bring me Burns's journal : it always does me good 
to see it, for it shows that an honest officer may carry a kind heart about 
with him." 

Of his religious principles, we are bound to judge by what he has told 
himself in his more serious moments. He sometimes doubted with the 
sorrow, what in the main, and above all, in the end, he believed with the 
fervour of a poet. " It occasionally haunts me," says he in one of his let- 
ters, — " the dark suspicion, that immortality may be only too good news to 
be true ;" and here, as on many points besides, how much did his method of 
thinking, (I fear I must add of acting), resemble that of a nobl^ poet more 
recently lost to us. " I am no bigot to infideh'ty," said Lord Byron, " and 
did not expect that because I doubted the immortiility of man, I should be 
charged with denying the existence of a Ciod. It was the comparative in- 
significance of ourselves and our world, when placed in comparison with 
the mighty whole, of which it is an atom, that first led me to imagine that 
our pretensions to immortality might be overrated." I dare not pretend 
to quote the sequel from memory, but the efflect was, that Byron, like 
Burns, complained of " the early discipline of Scotch Calvinism," and 
the natural gloom of a melancholy heart, as having between them engen- 
dered " a hypochondriacal disease,''' which occasionally visited and depres- 
sed him through life. In the opposite scale, we are, in justice to Burns, 
to place many pages which breathe the ardour, nay the exultation of faith, 
and the humble sincerity of Christian hope ; and, as the poet himself has 
warned us, it well befits us 

*' At the balance to be mute." 

Let us avoid, in the name of Religion herself, the fatal error of those who 
would rashly swell the catalogue of the enemies of religion. " A saUy of 
levity," says once more Dr. Johnson, *' an indecent jest, an unreasonable 
objection, are sufficient, in the opinion of some men, to efface a name 
from the lists of Christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life. Such 
men are so watchful to censure, that they have seldom much care to look 
for favourable interpretations of ambiguities, or to know how soon any 
step of inadvertency has been expiated by sorrow and retractation, but let 
fly their fulminations without mercy or prudence against slight offences or 
casual temerities, against crimes never committed, or immediately repent- 
ed. The zealot should recollect, that he is labouring, by this frequency 
of excommunication, against his own cause, and voluntarily adding strength 
to the enemies of truth. It must always be the condition of a great part 
of mankind, to reject and embrace tenets upon the authority of those whom 
they think wiser than themselves, and therefore the addition of every name 
to infidelity, in some degree invalidates that argument upon which the re- 
ligion of multitudes is necessarily founded." * In conclusion, let me adopt 

* Life of Sir Thomas Browne. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS.' cxxvii 

the beautiful sentiment ot" that illustrious moral poet of our own time, 
whose generous defence of Burns will be remembered while the lan- 
guage lasts ; — 

" liCt no mean hope your souls enslave — 
Be independent, generous, brave ; 
Your" Poet "" such example gave, 

And such revere. 
But be admonished by his grave, 

And think and fear." * 

It is possible, perhaps for some it may be easy, to imagine a character 
of a much higher cast than that of Burns, developed, too, under circum- 
stances in many respects not unlike those of his history — the character of a 
man of lowly birth, and powerful genius, elevated by that philosophy which 
is alone pure and divine, far above all those annoyances of terrestrial spleen 
and passion, which mixed from the beginning with the workings of his in- 
spiration, and in the end were able to eat deep into the great heart which 
they had long tormented. Such a being would have received, no ques- 
tion, a species of devout reverence, I mean when the grave had closed on 
him, to which the warmest admirers of our poet can advance no preten- 
sions for their unfortunate favourite ; but could such a being have delight- 
ed his species — could he even have instructed them like Burns ? Ought 
we not to be thankful for every new variety of form and circumstance, in 
and under which the ennobling energies of true and lofty genius are found 
addressing themselves to the common brethren of the race ? Would we 
have none but Miltons and Cowpers in poetry — but Brownes and South- 
eys in prose ? Alas ! if it were so, to how large a portion of the species 
would all the gifts of all the muses remain for ever a fountain shut up and 
a book sealed ! Were the doctrine of intellectual excommunication to be 
thus expounded and enforced, how small the library that would remain to 
kindle the fancy, to draw out and refine the feelings, to enlighten the head 
by expanding the heart of man ! From Aristophanes to Byron, how broad 
the sweep, how woeful the desolation ! 

In the absence of that vehement sympathy with humanity as it is, its 
sorrows and its joys as they are, we might have had a great man, perhaps 
a great poet, but we could have had no Burns. It is very noble to despise 
the accidents of fortune ; but what moral homily concerning these, could 
have equalled that which Burns's poetry, considered alongside of Burns's 
history, and the history of his fame, presents ! It is very noble to be above 
the allurements of pleasure ; but who preaches so effectually against them, 
as he who sets forth in immortal verse his own intense sympathy with those 
that yield, and in verse and in prose, in action and in passion, in life and 
in death, the dangers and the miseries of yielding? 

It requires a graver audacity of hypocrisy than falls to the share of most 
men, to declaim against Burns's sensibility to the tangible cares and toils 
of his earthly condition ; there are more who venture on broad denuncia- 
tions of his sympathy with the joys of sense and passion. To these, the 
great moral poet already quoted speaks in the following noble passage — 
and must he speak in vain ? " Permit me," says he, " to remind you, that it 
is the privilege of poetic genius to catch, under certain restrictions of which 
perhaps at the time of its being exerted it is but dimly conscious, a 

* Wordswortli's address to the sons of Burns, on visiting his grave in 1803. 



cxxviii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

spirit of pleasure wherever it can be found, — in the walks of nature, and 
in the business of men. — The poet, trusting to primary instincts, luxuriates 
among the felicities of love and wine, and is enraptured while he describes 
the fairer aspects of war ; nor does he shrink from the company of the pas- 
sion of love though immoderate — from convivial pleasure though intempe- 
rate — nor from the presence of war though savage, and recognised as the 
hand-maid of desolation. Frequently and admirably has Burns given way 
to these impulses of nature ; both with reference to himself, and in describ- 
ing the condition of others. Who, but some impenetrable dunce or narrow- 
minded puritant in works of art, ever read without delight the picture 
which he has drawn of the convivial exaltation of the rustic adventurer, 
Tam o' Shanter ? The poet fears not to tell the reader in the outset, that 
his hero was a desperate and sottish drunkard, whose excesses were fre- 
quent as his opportunities. This reprobate sits down to his cups, while 
the storm is roaring, and heaven and earth are in confusion ; — the night is 
driven on by song and tumultuous noise — laughter and jest thicken as the 
beverage improves upon the palate — conjugal fidelity archly bends to the 
service of general benevolence — selfishness is not absent, but wearing the 
mask of social cordiality — and, while these various elements of humanity 
are blended into one proud and happy composition of elated spirits, the 
anger of the tempest without doors only heightens and sets off the enjoy- 
ment within. — I pity him who cannot perceive that, in all this, though 
there was no moral purpose, there is a moral effect. 

" Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.** 

*' What a lesson do these words convey of charitable indulgence for the 
vicious habits of the principal actor in this scene, and of those who resem- 
ble him ! — Men who to the rigidly virtuous are objects almost of loath- 
ing, and whom therefore they cannot serve ! The poet, penetrating the 
unsightly and disgusting surfaces of things, has unveiled with exquisite 
skill the finer ties of imagination and feeling, that often bind these beings 
to practices productive of much unhappiness to themselves, and to those 
whom it is their duty to cherish ; — and, as far as he puts the reader into 
possession of this intelligent sympathy, he qualifies him for exercising a 
salutary influence over the minds of those who are thus deplorably de- 
ceived." * 

That some men in every age will comfort themselves in the practice of 
certain vices, by reference to particular passages both in the history and 
in the poetry of Burns, there is all reason to fear ; but surely the general 
influence of both is calculated, and has been found, to produce far different 
effects. The universal popularity which his writings have all along enjoy- 
ed among one of the most virtuous of nations, is of itself, as it would seem, 
a decisive circumstance. Search Scotland over, from the Pentland to the 
Solway, and there is not a cottage-hut so poor and wretched as to be with- 
out its Bible ; and hardly one that, on the same shelf, and next to it, does 
not possess a Burns. Have the people degenerated since their adoption 
of this new manual ? Has their attachment to the Book of Books declined ? 
Are their hearts less firmly bound, than were their fathers', to the old faith 
and the old virtues ? I believe, he that knows the most of the country wiU 

• Wordsworth's Letter to Gray, p. 24. 



L1F£ OF ROBERT BURNS, cxxix 

be tiie readiest to answer all these questions, as every lover of ^eniius and 
virtue would desire to bear them answered. 

On one point there ean be no eontroversy ; the i)oetry of Burns has had 
most powerful intluence in reviving and strengthening the national feelings 
of his countrymen. Amidst penury and labour, his youth fed on the old 
minstrelsy and traditional glories of his nation, and his genius divined, 
that what he felt so deeply must belong to a spirit that might lie smothered, 
around him, but could not be extinguished. The political circumstances 
of Scotland were, and had been, such as to starve the flame of patriotism ; 
the popular literature had striven, and not in vain, to make itself English ; 
and, above all, a new and a cold system of speculative pliiloso})hy had be- 
gun to spread widely among us. A peasant appeared, and set himself to 
check the creeping pestilence of this indifference. Whatever genius has 
since then been devoted to the illustration of the national manners, and 
sustaining thereby of the national feelings of the people, there can be no 
doubt that Burns will ever be remembered as the founder, and, alas ! in 
his own person as the martyr, of this reformation. 

That what is now-a-days called, by solitary eminence, the icealth of the 
nation, had been on the increase ever since our incorporation with a greater 
and wealthier state — nay, that the laws had been improving, and, above all, 
the administration of the laws, it would be mere bigotry to dispute. It 
may also be conceded easily, that the national mind had been rapidly clear- 
ing itself of many injurious prejudices — that the people, as a people, had 
been gradually and surely advancing in knowledge and wisdom, as well as 
in wealth and security. But all this good had not been accomplished with- 
out rude work. \^ the improvement were valuable, it had been purchased 
dearly. " The spring fire," Allan Cunningham says beautifully somewliere, 
*' which destroys the furze, makes an end also of the nests of a thousand 
song-birds ; and he who goes a-trouting with lime leaves little of life in the 
stream." We were getting fast ashamed of many precious and beautiful 
things, only for that they were old and our own. 

It has already been remarked, how even Smollett, who began ^vith a 
national tragedy, and one of the noblest of national lyrics, never dared to 
make use of the dialect of his own country ; and how Moore, another mo^it 
enthusiastic Scotsman, followed in this respect, as in others, the example 
of Smollett, and over and over again counselled Burns to do the like. But 
a still more striking sign of the times is to be found in the style adopted 
by both of these novelists, especially the great master of the art, in their 
representations of the manners and characters of their own countrymen. 
In Humphry Clinker, the last and best of Smollett's tales, there are some 
traits of a^better kind — but, taking his works as a whole, the impression it 
conveys is certainly a painful, a disgusting one. The Scotsmen of these 
authors, are the Jocke) s and Archies of farce — 

Time out of mind the Southrons' mirthmakcrsi — 

the best of them grotesque combinations of simplicity and hypocrisy, |)ride 
and meanness. When such men, high-spirited Scottish gentlemen, posses- 
sed of learning and talents, and, one of them at least, of splendid genius, 
felt, or fancied, the necessity of making such submissions to the prejudices of 
the dominant nation, and did so w ithout exciting a murmur among tlieir owti 
countrymen, we may form some notion of the boldness of Burns's experi- 
ment ; and on contrasting the state of things then with what is beibrc us 

I'J 



cxxx LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

now, it will cost no effort to appreciate the nature and consequences of the 
victory in which our poet led the way, by achievements never in their kind 
to be surpassed. " Burns," says Mr. Campbell, " has given the elixir vitai 
to his dialect ;" — he gave it to more than his dialect. *' He was," says a 
writer, in whose language a brother poet will be recognised — '• he was in 
many respects bora at a happy time ; happy for a man of genius like him, 
but fatal and hopeless to the more common mind. A whole world of life 
lay before Burns, whose inmost recesses, and darkest nooks, and sunniest 
eminences, he had familiarly trodden from his childhood. All that world 
he felt could be made his own. No conqueror had overrun its fertile pro- 
vinces, and it was for him to be crowned supreme over all the 

' Lyric singers of that high-soul'd land.' 

The crown that he has won can never be removed from his head. Much 
is yet left for other poets, even among that life where his spirit delighted 
to work ; but he has built monuments on all the high places, and they who 
follow can only hope to leave behind them some far humbler memorials." * 

Dr. Currie says, that " \i fiction be the soul of poetry, as some assert. 
Burns can have small pretensions to the name of poet." The success of 
Burns, the influence of his verse, would alone be enough to overturn all 
the systems of a thousand definers ; but the Doctor has obviously taken 
fiction in far too limited a sense. There are indeed but few of Burns's 
pieces in which he is found creating beings and circumstances, both alike 
alien from his own person and experience, and then by the power of ima- 
gination, divining and expressing what forms life and passion would assume 
with, and under these. — But there are some ; there is quite enough to sa- 
tisfy every reader of Halloween^ the Jolly Beggars, and Tarn o ShanteVy 
(to say nothing of various particular songs, such as Bruce s Address, Mac- 
phersons Lament, &c. ) , that Burns, if he pleased, might have been as large- 
ly and as successfully an inventor in this way, as he is in another walk, 
perhaps not so inferior to this as many people may have accustomed them- 
selves to believe ; in the art, namely, of recombining and new-combining, 
varying, embellishing, and fixing and transmitting the elements of a most 
picturesque experience, and most vivid feelings.* 

Lord Byron, in his letter on Pope, treats with high and just contempt 
the laborious trifling which has been expended on distinguishing by air- 
drawn lines and technical slang-words, the elements and materials of poe- 
tical exertion ; and, among other things, expresses his scorn of the attempts 
that have been made to class Burns among minor poets, merely because he 
has put forth few large pieces, and still fewer of what is called the purely 
imaginative character. Fight who will about words and forms, " Burns's 
rank," says he, " is in the first class of his art ;" and, I believe, , the world 
at large are now-a-days well prepared to prefer a line from such a pen as 
Byron's on any such subject as this, to the most luculent dissertation that 
ever perplexed the brains of writer and of reader. Sentio, ergo sum, says 
the metaphysician ; the critic may safely parody the saying, and assert 
that that is poetry of the highest order, which exerts influence of the most 
powerful order on the hearts and minds of mankind. 

Burns has been appreciated duly, and he has had the fortune to be prais- 
ed eloquently, by almost every poet who has come after him. To accu- 

* Blackwood's Magazine, February 1817. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cxxxi 

mulate all that has been said of him, even by men like himself, of the first 
order, would fill a volume — and a noble monument, no question, that vo- 
lume would be — the noblest, except what he has left us in his own im- 
mortal verses, which — were some dross removed, and the rest arranged in 
a chronological order — would I believe form, to the intelligent, a more per- 
fect and vivid history of his life than will ever be composed out of all the 
materials in the world besides. 

" The impression of his genius," says Campbell, " is deep and univer- 
sal ; and viewing him merely as a poet, there is scarcely another regret 
connected with his name, than that his productions, with all their merit, 
fall short of the talents which he possessed. That he never attempted any 
great work of fiction, may be partly traced to the cast of his genius, and 
partly to his circumstances, and defective education. His poetical tempe- 
rament was that of fitful transports, rather than steady inspiration. What- 
ever he might have written, was likely to have been fraught with passion. 
There is always enough of interest in life to cherish the feelings of genius ; 
but it requires knowledge to enlarge and enrich the imagination. Of that 
knowledge which unrolls the diversities of human manners, adventures, 
and characters, to a poet's study, he could have no great share ; although 
he stamped the little treasure which he possessed in the mintage of sove- 
reign genius." * 

" Notwithstanding," says Sir Walter Scott, " the spirit of many of his 
lyrics, and the exquisite sweetness and simplicity of others, we cannot but 
deeply regret that so much of his time and talents was frittered away in 
compiling and composing for musical collections. There is sufficient evi- 
dence, that even the genius of Burns could not supjwrt him in the monoton- 
ous task of writing love verses, on heaving bosoms and sparkling eyes, and 
twisting them into such rhythmical forms as might suit the capricious evo- 
lutions of Scotch reels and strathspeys. Besides, this constant waste of 
his power and fancy in small and insignificant compositions, must neces- 
sarily have had no little effect in deterring him from undertaking any grave 
or important task. Let no one suppose that we undervalue the songs of 
Burns. When his soul was intent on suiting a favourite air to words hu- 
morous or tender, as the subject demanded, no poet of our tongue ever 
displayed higher skill in marrying melody to immortal verse. But the 
writing of a series of songs for large musical collections, degenerated into 
a slavish labour which no talents could support, led to negligence, and, 
above all, diverted the poet from his grand plan of dramatic composition. 
To produce a work of this kind, neither, perhaps, a regular tragedy nor 
comedy, but something partaking of the nature of both, seems to have been 
long the cherished wish of Burns. He had even fixed on the subject, 
which was an adventure in low life, said to have happened to Robert Bruce, 
while wandering in danger and disguise, after being defeated by the English. 
The Scottish dialect would have rendered such a piece totally unfit for the 
stage ; but those who recollect the masculine and lofty tone of martial spirit 
which glows in the poem of Bannockburn, will sigh to think what the cha- 
racter of the gallant Bruce might have proved under the hand of Burns. It 
would undoubtedly have wanted that tinge of chivalrous feeling which the 
manners of the age, no less than the disposition of the monarch, 'demanded ; 
but this deficiency would have been more than supplied by a bard who 
could have drawn from his own perceptions, the unbending energy of a 

* Specimens, vol. vii. 241. 



cxxxii LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. 

hero sustaining tlic desertion of friends, the persecution of enemies, and 
the utmost malice of disastrous fortune. The scene, too, being partly laid 
in humble life, admitted that display of broad humour and exquisite pathos, 
with which he could, interchangeably and at pleasure, adorn his cottage 
views. Nor was the assemblage of familiar sentiments incompatible in 
Burns, with those of the most exalted dignity. In the inimitable tale ot 
Tarn o Shanter, he has left us sufficient evidence of his abilities to com- 
bine the ludicrous with the awful, and even the horrible. No poet, with 
the exception of Shakspeare, ever possessed the power of exciting the most 
varied and discordant emotions with such rapid transitions. His humour- 
ous description of death in the poem on Dr. Hornbook borders on the ter- 
rific, and the witches' dance in the kirk of Alloa is at once ludicrous and 
horrible. Deeply must we then regret those avocations which diverted a 
fancy so varied and so vigorous, joined with language and expression suited 
to all its changes, from leaving a more substantial monument to his own 
fame, and to the honour of his country." 

The cantata of the Jolly Beggars^ which was not printed at all until some 
time after the poet's death, and has not been included in the editions of his 
works until within these ^ew years, cannot be considered as it deserves, with- 
out strongljT^ heightening our regret that Burns never lived to execute his 
meditated drama. That extraordinary sketch, coupled with his later ly- 
rics in a higher vein, is enougli to show that in him we had a master capa- 
ble of placing the musical drama on a level with the loftiest of our classi- 
cal forms. Beggar s Bush, and Beggar s Opera^ sink into tameness in the 
comparison ; and indeed, without profanity to the name of Shakspeare, it 
may be said, that out of such materials, even his genius could hardly have 
constructed a piece in which imagination could have more splendidly pre- 
dominated over the outward shows of things — in which the sympathy- 
awakening power of poetry could have been displayed more triumphantly 
under circumstances of the greatest difficulty. — That remarkable perform- 
ance, by the way, was an early production of the Mauchline period. I 
know nothing but the Tam o' SJianter that is calculated to convey so high 
an impression of what Burns might have done. 

As to Burns's v/ant of education and knowledge, Mr. Campbell may not 
have considered, but he must admit, that whatever Burns's opportunities 
had been at the time when he produced his first poems, such a man as he 
was not likely to be a hard reader, (which he certainly was), and a constant 
observer of men and manners, in a much wider circle of society than al- 
most any other great poet has ever moved in, from three-and-twenty to 
eight-and-thirty, without having thoroughly removed any pretext for au- 
guring unfavourably on that score, of what he might have been expected 
to produce in the more elaborate departments of his art, had his life been 
spared to the usual limits of humanity. In another way, however, I can- 
not help suspecting that Burns's enlarged knowledge, both of men and books, 
produced an unfavourable effect, rather than otherwise, on the exertions, 
such as they were, of his later years. His generous spirit was open to the 
impression of every kind of excellence ; his lively imagination, bending its 
own vigour to whatever it touched, made him admire even what other peo- 
ple try to read in vain ; and after travelling, as he did, over the general 
surface of our literature, he appears to have been somewhat startled at the 
consideration of what he himself had, in comparative ignorance, adventur- 
ed, and to have been more intimidated than encouraged by the retrospect. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. cxxxiii 

In most of tlic new departments in which he made some trial of his strength, 
(such, for example, as the moral epistle in Pope's vein, the heroic satire, 
&c.), he a])pcars to have soon lost heart, and paused. There is indeed one 
magnificent exception in Tarn o Shmiter — a piece which no one can under- 
stand without believing, that had Burns pursued that walk, and poured out 
his stores of traditionary lore, embellished with his extraordinary powers 
of description of all kinds, we might have had from his hand a series of na- 
tional tales, uniting the quaint simplicity, sly humour, and irresistible pathos 
of another Chaucer, with the strong and graceful versification, and mascu- 
line wit and sense of another Dryden. 

This was a sort of feeling that must have in time subsided. — But let us 
not waste words in regretting what might have been, where so much is, — 
Burns, short and painful as were his years, has left behind him a volume 
in which there is inspiration for every fancy, and music for every mood ; 
which lives, and will live in strength and vigour — " to soothe," as a gene- 
rous lover of genius has said — " the sorrows of how many a lover, to in- 
flame the patriotism of how many a soldier, to fan the fires of how many a 
genius, to disperse the gloom of solitude, appease the agonies of pain, en- 
courage virtue, and show vice its ugliness ;" * — a volume, in which, centuries 
hence, as now, wherever a Scotsman may wander, he will find the dearest 
consolation of his exile. — Already has 



Glory witliout end 



Scattered the clouds away ; and on that name attend 
The tears and praises of all time." •\ 



The mortal remains of the poet rest in Dumfries churchyard. For nine- 
teen years they were covered by the plain and humble tombstone placed 
over them by his widow, bearing the inscription simply of his name. But 
a splendid mausoleum having been erected by public subscription on the 
most elevated site which the churchyard presented, the remains were so- 
lemnly transferred thither on the 8th June 1815; the original tombstone 
having been sunk under the bottom of the mausoleum. This shrine of the 
poet is annually visited by many pilgrims. The inscription it bears is given 
below. Another splendid monumental edifice has also been erected to 
his memory on a commanding situation at the foot of the Carrick hills in 
Ayrshire, in the immediate vicinity of the old cottage where the poet was 
born ; and such is the unceasing, nay daily increasing veneration of his 
admiring countrymen, that a third one, of singular beauty of design, is 
now in progress, upon a striking projection of that most picturesque emi- 
nence — the Calton Hill of Edinburgh. — The cut annexed to p. cxxxvi. 
exhibits a view, necessarily but an imperfect one, of the monument last 
mentioned. 



* See the Censura Litcraria of Sir Egerton Brydges, vol, ii. p. 55. 
'\ lyord IJyrou's Child ilarold, C^anto iv. 30. 



LIFE OF ROBERT BURN.^ 



INSCRIPTION UPON THE POET'S MONUMENT IN 
DUMFRIES CHURCHYARD. 



IN AETERNUM HONOEEM 

ROBERTI BURNS 

POET ARUM CALEDONIAE SUI AEVI LONGE PRINCIPIS 

CUJUS CARMINA EXIMIA PATRIO SERMONE SCRTPTA 

ANIMI MAGIS ARDENTIS VIQUC INGENII 

QUAM ARTE VEL CULTU CONSPICUA 

FACETIIS JUCUNDITATE I.EPORE AFFLUENTIA 

OMNIBUS LITTERARUM CULTORIBUS SATIS NOTA 

CIVES SUI NECNON PI^RIQUE OMNES 

MUSARUM AMANTISSIMI MEMORIAMQUE VIRI 

ARTE POeTICA TAM PRAECLARI FOVENTES 

HOC MAUSOLEUM 

SUPER REI-IQUIAS POETAE MORTALES 

EXTRUENDUM CURAVERE 

PRIMUM HUJUS AEDIFICn LAPIDEM 

GULIELMUS MILLER ARMIGER 

REIPUBLICAE ABOHITECTONICAE APUD SCOTOS 

IN REGIONE AUSTRALI CURIO MAXIMUS PROVINCIALIS 

GEORGIO TERTIO REGNANTE 

GEORGIO WALLIARUM PRINCIPE 

SUMMAM IMPERII PRO PATRE TENENTE 

lOSEPHO GASS ARMIGERO DUMFRISIAE PRAEFECTO 

THOMA F. HUNT LONDINENSI ARCHITECTO 

POSUIT 

NONIS JUNIJS ANNO LUCIS VMDCCCXV 

SALUTIS HUMANAE MDCCCXV. 



ON THE DEATH OE BURNS. cxxxv 

The many poetical effusions the Peot's death gave rise to, presents a 
wide field for selection. — The elegiac verses by Mr. Roscoe of Liverpool 
have been preferred, as the most fitting sequel to his eventful life. 



ON 



THE DEATH OF BURNS. 



IvEAH high thy bleak majestic hills, 

Thy shelter'd valleys proudly spread, 
And, Scotia, pour thy thousand rills, 

And wave thy heaths with blossoms red ; 
But, ah ! what poet now shall tread 

Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign, 
t>ince he, the sweetest bard, is dead, 

That ever breath'd the soothing strain ! 

As green thy towering pines may grow. 

As elear thy streams may speed along, 
As bright thy summer suns may glow, 

As gaily charm thy feathery throng ; 
But now, unheeded is the song. 

And dull and lifeless all around. 
For his wild harp lies all unstrung. 

And cold the hand that waked its sound. 

What though thy vigorous offspring rise, 

In arts, in arms, thy sons excel ; 
Tho' beauty in thy daughters' eyes. 

And health in every feature dwell ? 
Yet who shall now their praises tell, 

In strains impassioned, fond, and free. 
Since he no more the song shall swell 

To love, and liberty, and thee ? 

With step-dame eye and frown severe 

His hapless youth why didst thou view ? 
Tor all thy joys to him were dear. 

And all his vows to thee were due ; 
Nor greater bliss his bosom knew. 

In opening youth's delightful prime. 
Than when thy favouring ear he drew 

To listen to his chaunted rhyme. 

Thy lonely wastes and frowning skies 

I'o him were all with rapture fraught ; 
He heard with joy the tempest rise 

That waked him to sublimer thought; 
And oft thy winding dells he sought, [fume. 

Where wild-tlowers pour'd their rathe per- 
And with sincere devotion brought 

To thee the summei's earliest bloom. 



But ah ! no fond maternal smile 

His unprotected youth enjoy'd. 
His limbs inur'd to early toil. 

His days with early hardships tried; 
And more to mark the gloomy void. 

And bid him feel his misery. 
Before his infant eyes would glide 

Day-dreams of immortality. 

Yet, not by cold neglect depress'd. 

With sinewy arm he turn'd the soil. 
Sunk with the evening sun to rest. 

And met at morn his earliest smile. 
VYaked by his rustic pipe, meanwhile 

The powers of fancy came along. 
And sooth'd his lengthened hours of toil. 

With native wit and sprightly song. 

— Ah ! days of bliss, too swiftly Hed, 

W^hen vigorous health from labour springs, 
And bland contentment smooths the bed, 

And sleep his ready opiate brings ; 
And hovering round on airy wings 

Float the light forms of young desire, 
That of unutterable things 

The soft and shadowy hope inspire- 
Now spells of mightier power prepare. 

Bid brighter phantoms round him dance ; 
Let Flattery spread her viewless snare. 

And Fame attract his vagrant glance ; 
Let sprightly Pleasure too advance, 

Unveird her eyes, unclasp'd her zone. 
Till, lost in love's delirious trance. 

He scorns the joys his youth has known. 

Let Friendship pour her brightest blaze, 

ljX])anding all the bloom of soul ; 
And Mirth concentre all her rays. 

And point them from the sparkling bowl ; 
And let the careless moments roU 

In social pleasure unconfined. 
And confidence that spurns control 

Unlock the inmost springs of mind : 



cxxxvi 



ON THE DEATH OF BURNS. 



And lead his ste])s those bowers among, 
AVhere elegance with splendour vies, 

Or Science bids her favoured throng- 
To more refined sensations rise : 

Beyond the peasant's humbler joys. 
And freed from each laborious strife, 

There let him learn the bliss to prize 
That waits the sons of polish'd life. 

Then whilst his throbbing veins beat high 

With every impulse of delight. 
Dash from his lips the cup of joy, 

And shroud the scene in shades of night ; 
And let Despair, with wizard light, 

Disclose the yawning gulf below. 
And pour incessant on his sight 

Her spectred ills and shapes of woe : 

And show beneath a cheerless shed. 

With sorrowing heart and streaming eyes, 

In silent grief where droops her head. 
The partner of his early joys ; 



And let his infants' tender cries 
His fond parental succour claim, 

And bid him hear in agonies 
A husband's and a father's name. 

'Tis done, the powerful charm succeeds ; 

His high reluctant spirit bends ; 
In bitterness of soul he bleeds. 

Nor longer with his fate contends. 
An idiot laugh the welkin rends 

As genius thus degraded lies ; 
Till pitying Heaven the veil extends 

That shrouds the Poet's ardent eyes. 

— Rear high thy bleak majestic hiUs, 

Thy shelter'cl valleys proudly spread, 
And, Scotia, pour thy thousand nils, 

And wave thy heaths with blossoms red ; 
But never more shall poet tread 

Thy airy heights, thy woodland reign, 
Since he, the sweetest bard, is dead, 

That ever breathed the soothing strain. 




CHARACTER 



BURNS AND HIS WRITINGS, 



MRS. RIDDELL OF GLENRIDDELL.* 



The attention of the public seems to be much occupied at present with 
the loss it has recently sustained in the death of the Caledonian poet, Ro- 
bert Burns ; a loss calculated to be severely felt throughout the literary 
world, as well as lamented in the narrower sphere of private friendship. It 
was not therefore probable that sucii an event should be long unattended 
with the accustomed profusion of posthumous anecdotes and memoirs which 
are usually circulated immediately after the death of every rare and cele- 
brated personage : I had however conceived no intention of appropriating 
to myself the privilege of criticising Burns's writings and character, or of 
anticipating on the province of a biographer. 

Conscious indeed of my own inability to do justice to such a subject, I 
should have continued wholly silent, had misrepresentation and calumny 
been less industrious ; but a regard to truth, no less than affection for the 
memory of a friend, must now justify my offering to the public a few at 
least of those observations which an intimate acquaintance with Burns, and 
the frequent opportunities I have had of observing equally his happy qua- 
lities and his failings for several years past, have enabled me to commu- 
nicate. 

It will actually be an injustice done to Burns's character, not only by 
future generations and foreign countries, but even by his native Scotland, 
and perhaps a number of his contemporaries, that he is generally talked of, 
and considered, with reference to his poetical talents only : for the fact is, 
even allowing his great and original genius its due tribute of admiration, 
that poetry (I appeal to all who have had the advantage of being person- 
ally acquainted with him) was actually not \\\% forte. Many others, per- 
haps, may have ascended to prouder heights in the region of Parnassus, 
but none certainly ever outshone Burns in the charms — the sorcery, I 

« Mrs. Riddell knew the poet well ; she had evci-y opportunity for observation of what he said and did, as 
well as of what was said of him and done towards lum. Her beautifully written Kloge, — friendly yet candid, 
— was well received and generally circulated at the time. It has beai inserted by Dr. Currie in his several 
editions, as interestin<» from its elegance, and authoritative from the writer's acciuate information ; we have 
therefore most readily given it a place here. 

20 



cxxxviii CHARACTER OF BURNS AND HIS WRITINGS. 

would almost call it, of fascinating conversation, the spontaneous elo- 
quence of social argument, or the unstudied poignancy of brilliant repar- 
tee ; nor was any man, I believe, ever gifted with a larger portion of the 
' vivida vis animV His personal endowments were perfectly correspon- 
dent to the qualifications of his mind : his form was manly ; his action, 
energy itself; devoid in great measure perhaps of those graces, of that 
polish, acquired only in the refinement of societies where in early hfe he 
could have no opportunities of mixing ; but where, such was the irresist- 
ible power of attraction that encircled him, though his appearance and 
manners were always peculiar, he never failed to delight and to excel. 
His figure seemed to bear testimony to his earlier destination and employ- 
ments. It seemed rather moulded by nature for the rough exercises of 
Agriculture, than the gentler cultivation of the Belles Lettres. His fea- 
tures were stamped with the hardy character of independence, and the 
firmness of conscious, though not arrogant, pre-eminence ; the animated 
expressions of countenance were almost peculiar to himself; the rapid 
lightnings of his eye were always the harbingers of some flash of genius, 
whether they darted the fiery glances of insulted and indignant superiori- 
ty, or beamed with the impassioned sentiment of fervent and impetuous 
affections. His voice alone could improve upon the magic of his eye : so- 
norous, replete with the finest modulations, it alternately captivated the 
ear with the melody of poetic numbers, the perspicuity of nervous reason- 
ing, or the ardent sallies of enthusiastic patriotism. The keenness of sa- 
tire was, I am almost at a loss whether to say, his forte or his foible ; for 
though nature had endowed him with a portion of the most pointed excellence 
in that dangerous talent, he suffered it too often to be the vehicle of personal, 
and sometimes unfounded, animosities. It was not always that sportiveness 
of humour, that '' unwary pleasantry," which Sterne has depicted with touches 
so conciliatory ; but the darts of ridicule were frequently directed as the ca- 
price of the instant suggested, or as the altercations of parties and of persons 
happened to kindle the restlessness of his spirit into interest or aversion. 
This, however, was not invariably the case; his wit, (which is no unusual mat- 
ter indeed), had always the start of his judgment, and would lead him into 
the indulgence of raillery uniformly acute, but often unaccompanied with 
the least desire to wound. The suppression of an arch and full-pointed bon 
mot, from a dread of offending its object, the sage of Zurich very properly 
classes as a virtue only to he sought for in the Calendar of Saints ; if so, 
Burns must not be too severely dealt with for being rather deficient in it. 
He paid for his mischievous wit as dearly as any one could do. *' 'Twas no 
extravagant arithmetic," to say of him, as was said of Yorick, that " for 
every ten jokes he got a hundred enemies ;" but much allowance will be 
made by a candid mind for the splenetic warmth of a spirit A»hom " dis- 
tress had spited with the world," and which, unbounded in its intellectual 
sallies and pursuits, continually experienced the curbs imposed by the way- 
wardness of his fortune. The vivacity of his wishes and temper was indeed 
checked by almost habitual disappointments, which sat heavy on a heart 
that acknowledged the ruling passion of independence, without having ever 
been placed beyond the grasp of penury. His soul was never languid or 
inactive, and his genius was extinguished only with the last spark of re- 
treating life. His passions rendered him, according as they disclosed them- 
selves in affection or antipathy, an object of enthusiastic attachment, or of 
decided enmity ; for he possessed none of that negative insipidity of cha* 



CHARACTER OF BURNS AND HIS WRITINGS. cxxxlx 

ractev, whose love might be regarded with indifference, or whose resent- 
ment could be considered with contempt. In this, it should seem, the 
temper of his associates took the tincture from his own ; for he acknowledg- 
ed in the universe but two classes of objects, those of adoration the most 
fervent, or of aversion the most uncontrolable ; and it has been frequently 
a reproach to him, that, unsusceptible of indifference, often hating, where 
he ought only to have despised, he alternately opened his heart and poured 
forth the treasures of his understanding to such as were incapable of ap- 
preciating the homage ; and elevated to the privileges of an adversary, some 
who were unqualified in all respects for the honour of a contest so distin- 
guished. 

It is said that the celebrated Dr. Johnson professed to " love a good 
hater" — a temperament that would have singularly adapted him to cherish 
a prepossession in favour of our bard, who perhaps fell !)ut little short even 
of the surly Doctor in this qualification, as long as the disposition to ill-will 
continued ; but the warmth of his passions was fortunately corrected by 
their versatility. He was seldom, indeed never, implacable in his resent- 
ments, and sometimes, it has been alleged, not inviolably faithful in his 
engagements of friendship. Much indeed has been said about his incon- 
stancy and caprice ; but I am inclined to believe, that they originated less 
in a levity of sentiment, than from an extreme impetuosity of feeling, 
which rendered him prompt to take umbrage ; and his sensations of pique, 
where he fancied he had discovered the traces of neglect, scorn, or unkind- 
iiess, took their measure of asperity from the overflowings of the opposite 
sentiment which preceded them, and which seldom fliiled to regain its as- 
cendancy in his bosom on the return of calmer reflection. He was candid 
and manly in the avowal of his errors, and his avowal was a reparation. 
His native, ^er^e never forsaking him for a moment, the value of a frank 
acknowledgment was enhanced tenfold towards a generous mind, from its 
never being attended with servility. His mind, organized only for the 
stronger and more acute operations of the passions, was impracticable to 
the efforts of superciliousness that would have depressed it into humility, 
and equally superior to the encroachments of venal suggestions that might 
have led him into the mazes of hypocrisy. 

It has been observed, that he was far from averse to the incense ot 
flattery, and could receive it tempered with less delicacy than might 
have been expected, as he seldom transgressed extravagantly in that 
way himself; where he paid a compliment, it might indeed claim the 
power of intoxication, as approbation from him was always an honest tri- 
bute from the warmth and sincerity of his heart. It has been sometimes 
represented, by those who it should seem had a view to depreciate, though 
they could not hope wholly to obscure that native brilliancy, which the 
powers of this extraordinary man had invariably bestowed on every thing 
that came from his lips or pen, that the history of the Ayrshire ploughboy 
was an ingenious fiction, fabricated for the purposes of obtaining the inte- 
rests of the great, and enhancing the merits of what in reality required no 
foil. The Cotter's Saturday Night, Tam o' Shanter, and the Mountain 
Daisy, besides a number of later productions, where the maturity of his 
genius will be readily traced, and wliich will be given to the public as 
soon as his friends have collected and arranged them, speak sufficiently for 
themselves ; and had they fallen from a hand more dignified in the ranks 
of society than that of a peasant, they had perhaps bestowed as unusual a 



cxl CHARACTER OF BURNS AND HIS WRITINGS. 

grace there, as even in the humbler sliade of rustic inspiration from whence 
they really sprung. 

To the obscure scene of Burns's education, and to the laborious, though 
honourable station of rural industry, in which his parentage enrolled him, 
almost every inhabitant of the south of Scotland can give testimony. His 
only surviving brother, Gilbert Burns, now guides the ploughshare of his 
forefathers in Ayrshire, at a farm near Mauchline ; * and our poet's eldest 
son (a lad of nine years of age, whose early dispositions already prove iiim 
to be in some measure the inheritor of his father's talents as well as indi- 
gence) has been destined by his family to the humble employments of the 
loom, f 

That Burns had received no classical education, and was acquainted 
with the Greek and Roman authors only through the medium of transla- 
tions, is a fact of which all who were in the habits of conversing with him, 
might readily be convinced. I have indeed seldom observed him to be at 
a loss in conversation, unless where the dead languages and their writers 
have been the subjects of discussion. When I have pressed him to tell me 
why he never applied himself to acquire the Latin, in particular, a lan- 
guage which his happy memory would have so soon enabled him to be mas- 
ter of, he used only to reply with a smile, that he had already learnt all the 
Latin he desired to know, and that was Omnia vincit amor ; a sentence 
that, from his writings and most favourite pursuits, it should undoubtedly 
seem that he was most thoroughly versed in ; but I really believe his clas- 
sic erudition extended little, if any, farther. 

The penchant Burns had uniformly acknowledged for the festive plea- 
sures of the table, and towards the fairer and softer objects of nature's 
creation, has been the rallying point from whence the attacks of his cen- 
sors have been uniformly directed ; and to these, it must be confessed, he 
shewed himself no stoic. His poetical pieces blend with alternate happi- 
ness of description, the frolic spirit of the flowing bowl, or melt the heart 
to the tender and impassioned sentiments in which beauty always taught 
him to pour forth his own. But who would wish to reprove the feelings he 
has consecrated with such lively touches of nature ? And where is the 
rugged moralist who will persuade us so far to " chill the genial current 
of the soul," as to regret that Ovid ever celebrated his Corinna, or that 
Anacreon sung beneath his vine ? 

I will not however undertake to be the apologist of the irregularities 
even of a man of genius, though I believe it is as certain that genius never 
was free from in:egularities, as that their absolution may in a great mea- 
sure be justly claimed, since it is perfectly evident that the world had con- 
tinued very stationary in its intellectual acquirements, had it never given 
birth to any but men of plain sense. Evenness of conduct, and a due re- 
gard to the decorums of the world, have been-^o rarely seen to move hand 
in hand with genius, that some have gone as far as to say, though there I 
cannot wholly acquiesce, that they are even incompatible ; besides, the 
frailties that cast their shade over the splendour of superior merit, are 
more conspicuously glaring than where they are the attendants of mere medi- 

* The fate of this worthy man is noticed at p. 302, where will be found a deserved tribute 
to his memory, (for he, too, alas 1 is gone), from the pen of a friend. 

■\ The plan of breeding the poet's eldest son a manufacturer was given up. He has been 
placed in one of the public offices (the Stamp-Office) in London, where he continues to fill 
respectably a respectable situation. His striking likeness to the poet has been often re- 
marked. 



CHARACTER OF BURNS AND HIS WRITINGS. cxli 

ocrity. It is only on the gem we are disturbed to see the dust ; the pebble 
may be soiled, and we never regard it. The eccentric intuitions of genius 
too often yield the soul to the wild effervescence of desires, always un- 
bounded, and sometimes equally dangerous to the repose of others as fatal 
to its own. No wonder then if virtue herself be sometimes lost in the blaze 
of kindling animation, or that the calm monitions of reason are not inva- 
riably found sufficient to fetter an imaginatio? which scorns the narrow 
limits and restrictions that would chain it to the level of ordinary minds. 
The child of nature, the child of sensibility, unschooled in the rigid pre- 
cepts of philosophy, too often unable to control the passions which proved 
a source of frequent errors and misfortunes to him, Burr:*'^ made his own 
artless apology in language more impressive than ail the argumentatory 
vindications in the world could do, in one of his own poems, where he de- 
lineates the gradual expansion of his mind to the lessons of the " tutelary 
muse," who concludes an address to her pupil, almost unique for simplicity 
and beautiful poetry, with these lines : 

'^ I saw thy pulse's madd'ning play 

Wild send thee pleasure's devious way ; 
Misled by Fancy's meteor ray. 

By passion driven ; 
But yet the light that led astray. 

Was light from heaven /" * 

I have already transgressed beyond the bounds I had proposed to my- 
self, on first committing this sketch to paper, which comprehends what at 
least I have been led to deem the leading features of Burns's mind and cha- 
racter : a literary critique I do not aim at ; mine is wholly fulfilled, if In 
these pages I have been able to delineate any of those strong traits that 
distinguished him, — of those talents which raised him from the plough, 
where he passed the bleak morning of his life, weaving his rude wreaths 
of poesy with the wild field-flowers that sprang around his cottage, to that 
enviable eminence of literary fame, where Scotland will long cherish his 
memory with delight and gratitude ; and proudly remember, that beneath 
her cold sky a genius was ripened, without care or culture, that would have 
done honour to climes more favourable to those luxuriances — that warmth 
of colouring and fancy in which he so eminently excelled. 

From several paragraphs I have noticed in the public prints, ever since 
the idea of sending this sketch to some one of them was formed, I find pri- 
vate animosities have not yet subsided, and that envy has not yet exhaust- 
ed all her shafts. I still trust, however, that honest fame will be perma- 
nently affixed to Burns's character, which I think it will be found he has 
merited by the candid and impartial among his countrymen. And M^here 
a recollection of the imprudences that sullied his brighter qualifications in- 
terpose, let the imperfection of all human excellence be remembered at 
the same time, leaving those inconsistencies, which alternately exalted his 
nature into the seraph, and sunk it again into the man, to the tribunal 
which ahne can investigate the labyrinths of the human heart — 

" Where they alike in trembling hope repose^ 
— The bosom of his father and his Go<Z." 

Gray's Ei.egy. 
Annandak, August 7, 1796. 

* Vide the Vision — Duan 2d. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



The following trifles are not the production of the poet, who, with all 
the advantages of learned art, and, perhaps, amid the elegancies and idle- 
ness of upper life, looks down for a rural theme, with an eye to Theocritus 
or Virgil. To the author of this, these and other celebrated names their 
countrymen are, at least in their original language, a fountain shut up., and 
a book sealed. Unacquainted with the necessary requisites for commencing 
poet by rule, he sings the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in him- 
self and rustic compeers around him, in his and their native language. — 
Though a rhymer from his earliest years, at least from the earliest impulse 
of the softer passions, it was not till very lately that the applause, perhaps 
the partiality, of friendship, wakened his vanity so far as to make him think 
any thing of his worth showing ; and none of the following works were com- 
posed with a view to the press. To amuse himself with the little creations 
of his own fancy, amid the toil and fatigues of a laborious life ; to transcribe 
the various feelings, the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears, in his own 
breast ; to find some kind of counterpoise to the struggles of a world, al- 
ways an alien scene, a task uncouth to the poetical mind — these were 
his motives for courting the Muses, and in these he found poetry to be 
its own reward. 

Now that he appears in the public character of an author, he does it 
with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that even 
he, an obscure, nameless bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of being 
branded as — An impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on the 
world ; and, because he can make a shift to jingle a few doggerel Scotch 
rhymes together, looking upon himself as a poet of no small consequence, 
forsooth ! 

It is an observation of that celebrated poet, Shenstone, whose divine ele- 
gies do honour to our language, our nation, and our species, that " Humility 
has depressed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised one to fame !" 
If any critic catches at the word ge^iiics, the author tells him once for all, 
that he certainly looks upon himself as possessed of some poetic abilities, 
otherwise his publishing in the manner he has done, would be a manoeuvre 
below the worst character, which, he hopes, his worst enemy will ever 
give him. But to the genius of a Ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the 
poor, unfortunate Fergusson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity, declares, 
that, even in his highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pre- 
tensions. These two justly admired Scotch poets he has often had in his 
eye in the following pieces ; but rather with a view to kindle at their flame, 
than for servile imitation. 



cxliv PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

To his subscribers, the author returns his most sincere thanks : Not the 
mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the 
bard, conscious how much he owes to benevolence and friendship for gra- 
tifying him, if he deserves it, in that dearest wish of every poetic bosom — 
to be distinguished. He begs his readers, particularly the learned and the 
polite, who may honour him with a perusal, that they will make every al- 
lowance for education and circumstances of life ; but if, after a fair, can- 
did, and impartial criticism, he shall stand convicted of dullness and non- 
sense, let him he done by as he would in that case do by others — let him 
be condemned, without mercy, to contempt and oblivion. 



TO THE 



NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN 



OF THE 



CALEDONIAN HUNT. 



My Lords and Gentlemen, 

A Scottish Bard, proud of the name, and whose highest ambition is to 
sing in his Country's service — where shall he so properly look for patron- 
age as to the illustrious names of his Native Land ; those who bear the ho- 
nours and inherit the virtues of their Ancestors ? The Poetic Genius of 
my Country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha — at the 
plough ; and threw her inspiring mantle over me. She bade me sing the 
loves, the joys, the rural scenes and rural pleasures of my native soil, in mj^ 
native tongue ; I turned my wild, artless notes, as she inspired. — She whis- 
pered me to come to this ancient Metropolis of Caledonia, and lay my 
Songs under your honoured protection : I now obey her dictates. 

Though much indebted to your goodness, I do not approach you, my 
Lords and Gentlemen, in the usual style of dedication, to thank you for 
past favours ; that path is so hackneyed by prostituted learning, that ho- 
nest rusticity is ashamed of it. Nor do I present this Address with the 
venal soul of a servile Author, looking for a continuation of those fiivours : 
I was bred to the Plough, and am independent. I come to claim the com- 
mon Scottish name with you, my illustrious Countrymen ; and to tell the 
world that I glory in the title. I come to congratulate my Country, that 
the blood of her ancient heroes still runs uncontaminated ; and that from 
your courage, knowledge, and public-spirit, she may expect protection, 
wealth, and liberty. In the last place, I come to prefer my warmest wishes 
to the Great Fountain of Honour, the Monarch of the Universe, for your 
welfare and happiness. 

When you go forth to awaken the Echoes, in the ancient and favourite 
amusement of your forefathers, may Pleasure ever be of your party ; and 
may Social Joy await your return : When harassed in courts or camps 



rlxvi DEDICATION TO THE CALEDONIAN HUNT. 

with the jostHngs of bad men and bad measures, may the honest consci- 
ousness of injured worth attend your return to your Native Seats ; aiui 
may Domestic Happiness, with a smiling welcome, meet you at your gates ! 
May corruption shrink at your kindling indignant glance ; and may tyranny 
in the Ruler, and licentiousness in the People, equally find an inexorable 
foe J 

I have the honour to be, 
With the sincerest gratitude, 
and highest respect. 

My Lords and Gentlemen, 
Your most devoted humble servant, 

ROBERT BURN& 
Edinburgh, ) 
April 4, 1787. ( 

.TVIUH 






POETRY. 



POEMS, 



CHIEFLY SCOTTISH. 



THE TWA DOGS: 

A TALE. 

'TwAs in that place o' Scotland's isle, 
That bears the name o' Auld King Coil, 
Upon a bonnie day in June, 
When wearing thro' the afternoon, 
Twa dogs that were na thrang at hame, 
Forgather'd ance upon a time. 

The first I'll name they ca'd him Ccesar, 
"Was keepit for his Honour's pleasure : 
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs, ' 
Show'd he was nane o' Scotland's dogs ; 
But whalpit some place far abroad, 
Where sailors gang to fish for cod. 

His locked, letter'd, braw brass collar 
Show'd him the gentleman and scholar : 
But tho' he was o' high degree. 
The fient a pride na pride had he ; 
But wad hae spent an hour caressin', 
Ev'n with a tinkler gipsey's messin'. 
At kirk or market, mill or smiddie, 
Nae tawted tyke, tho' e'er sae duddie, 
But he wad stan't, as glad to see him, 
And stroan't on stanes an' hUlocks wi' him. 

The tither was a ploughman's collie, 
A rhyming, ranting, raving billie, 
Wha for his friend an' comrade had him. 
And in his freaks had Luath ca'd him. 
After some dog in Highland sang,* 
Was made lang syne — Lord knows how lang. 

He was a gash an' faithfu' tyke, 
As ever lap a sheugh or dyke. 
His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face. 
Aye gat him friends in ilka place. 
His breast was white, his towzie back 
Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black ; 
His gawcie tail, wi' upward curl. 
Hung o'er his hurdles wi' a swurl. 



»,CuchuHin's dog in.Ossian's FingaJ. 



Nae doubt but they were fain o' ither. 
An' unco pack an' thick thegither ; 
Wi' social noise whyles sriuffd and snowklt ; 
■^Tiyles mice and mowdieworts they howkit ; 
Whyles scour'd awa in lang excursion, 
An' worry 'd ither in diversion ; 
Until wi' daffin weary grown, 
Upon a knowe they sat them down, 
And there began a lang digression. 
About the lords o' the creation^ 

CJESAK. 

I've often wonder'd honest Luath, 
What sort o' life poor dogs like you have ; 
An' when the gentry's life I saw, 
What way poor bodies lived ava. 

Our Laird gets in his racked rents. 
His coals, his kain, and a' his stents : 
He rises when he likes himsel' ; 
His flunkies answer at the bell j 
He ca's his coach, he ca's his horse ; 
He draws a bonnie silken purse. 
As lang's my tail, whare, thro' the steekfl. 
The yellow letter'd Geordie keeks. 

Frae morn to e'en its nought but toiling, 
At baking, roasting, frying, boiling ; 
An' tho' the gentry fast are stechin', 
Yet ev'n the ha' folk fill their pechan 
Wi' sauce, ragouts, and sic like trashtrie, 
That's little short o' downright wastrie. 
Our Whipper-in, wee blastit wonner. 
Poor worthless elf, it eats a dinner, 
Better than ony tenant man 
His Honour has in a' the Ian' : 
An' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, 
I own its past my comprehension. 

LUATH. 

Trowth, Caesar, whjles they're fash't eneugh 
A cotter howkin in a sheugh, 
Wi' dirty stanes biggin a dyke, 
Baring a quarry, and sic like, 
Himself, a wife, he thus sustains, 
A smytrie o' wee duddie weans, 
An' nought but his han' darg, to keep 
Them right and tight in thack an' rape. 



n 



2 



BURNS' WORKS. 



An' when they meet wi' sair disasters, 
Like loss o' health, or want of masters, 
Ye maist wad think, a wee touch langer. 
An' they maun starve o' cauld and hunger : 
But, how it comes, I never ken'd yet. 
They're maistly wonderfu' contented ; 
An' buirdly chiels, an' clever hizzies, 
Are bred in sic a way as this is. 



But then to see how ye're negleckit, 
How huff'd, and cuflTd, and disrespeckit ! 
L — d, man, our gentry care as little 
For delvers, ditchers, and sic cattle j 
They gang as saucy by poor fo'k, 
As I wad by a stinking brock. 

I've notic'd on our Laird's court day 
An' mony a time my heart's been wae, 
Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, 
How they maun thole a factor's snash ; 
He'll stamp an' threaten, curse an' swear, 
He'll apprehend them, poind their gear ; 
While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble. 
An' hear it a', an' fear an' tremble ! 

I see how folk live that hae riches ; 
But surely poor folk maun be wretches. 



They're nae sae wretched's ane wad think 
Tbo' constantly on poortith's brink : 
They're sae accustomed wi' the sight, 
The view o't gi'es them little fright. 

Then chance an' fortune are sae guided, 
They're aye in less or mair provided ; 
An' tho' fatigu'd wi' close employment, 
A blink o* rest's a sweet enjoyment. 

The dearest comfort o' their lives, 
Their grushie weans an' faithfu' wives ; 
The prattlin things are just their pride 
That sweetens a' their fire-side. 

An' whyles twalpennie worth o' nappy 
Can mak the bodies unco happy ; 
They lay aside their private cares, 
To mind the Kirk and State affairs : 
They'll talk o' patronage and priests, 
Wi' kindling fury in their breasts, 
Or tell what new taxation's comin', 
And ferlie at the folk in Lon'on. 

As bleak-fac'd Hallowmas returns, 
They get the jovial, rantin' kirns, 
When rural life, o' every station, 
Unite in common recreation : 
Love blinks, Wit slaps, an' social Mirth, 
Forgets there's Care upo' the earth. 

That merry day the year begins, 
They bar the door on frosty winds ; 
The nappy leeks wi' mantling ream 
An' sheds a heart-inspiring steam j 



The luntin' pipe, and sneeshin' mill. 
Are handed round wi' right guid will : 
The cantie auld folks crackin' crouse, 
The young anes rantin' thro' the house,' 
My heart has been sae fain to see them, 
That I for joy hae barkit wi' them. 

Still it's owre true that ye hae said, 
Sic game is now owre aften play'd. 
There's monie a creditable stock 
O' decent, honest, fawsont fo'k. 
Are riven out baith root and branch, 
Some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench, 
Wha thinks to knit himself the faster 
In favours wi' same gentle master, 
Wha aiblins thrang a parliamentin'. 
For Britain's guid his saul indeutin'— 



Haith, lad, ye little ken about it : 
For Britain's guid ! — guid faith, I doubt it ! 
Say, rather, gaun as Premiers lead him. 
An' sayin' aye or no's they bid him : 
At operas an' plays parading. 
Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading ; 
Or may be, in a frolic daft. 
To Hague or Calais takes a waft, 
To mak a tour, and tak a whirl. 
To learn bon ton and see the worl'. 

There, at Vieniia, or Versailles, 
He rives his father's auld entails ! 
Or by Madrid he takes the rout. 
To thrum guitars and fecht wi' nowt ; 
Or down Italian vista startles, 
Wh — re-hunting among groves o' myrtles : 
Then bouses drumly German water. 
To mak himsel' look fair and fatter. 
An' clear the consequential sorrows, 
Love gifts of Carnival signoras. 
For Britain's guid ! — for her destruction ! 
Wi' dissipation, feud, an' faction. 



Hech man ! dear sirs ! is that the gate 
They waste sae mony a braw estate ! 
Are we sae foughten an' harass'd 
For gear to gang that gate at last ! 

O would they stay aback frae courts, 
An' please themselves wi' countra sports, 
It wad for every ane be better, 
The Laird, the Tenant, an' the Cotter ! 
For thae frank, rantin', ramblin' billies, 
Fient haet o' them's ill-hearted fellows ; 
Except for breakin' o' their timmer, 
Or speakin' lightly o' their limmer. 
Or shootin' o' a hare or moor-cock, 
The ne'er a bit they're ill to poor folk. 

But will ye tell me, Master Ccesar, 
Sure great folk's life's a life o' pleasure ! 
Nae cauld or hunger e'er can steer them, 
The very thought o't need na fear them. 



POEMS. 



L — d, man, were ye but whyles where I am, 
The gentles ye wad ne'er envy 'em. 

It's true, they need na starve or sweat, 

Thro' winter's cauld or simmer's heat ; 

They've nae sair wark to craze their banes. 

An' fill auld age wi' gripes an' granes ; 

But human bodies are sic fools, 

For a' their colleges an' schools, 

That when nae real ills perplex them, 

They mak enow themselves to vex them. 

An' aye the less they hae to sturt them. 

In like proportion less will hurt them ; 

A country fellow at the pleugh, 

His acres till'd, he's right eneugh ; 

A country girl at her wheel, 

Her dizzens done, she's unco weel ; 

But Gentlemen, an' Ladies warst, 

Wi' ev'ndown want o' wark are curst. 

They loiter, lounging, lank, an' lazy ; 

Tho' deil haet ails them, yet uneasy ; 

Their days insipid, dull, an' tasteless ; 

Their nights unquiet, lang, an' restless ; 
An' ev'n their sports, their halls, an' races, 

Their gallopin' through public pla<;es. 

There's sic parade, sic pomp, an' art, 

The joy can scarcely reach the heart. 

The men cast out in party matches, 

Then sowther a' in deep debauches : 
Ae night they're mad wi' drink an wh-ring, 
IVeist day their life is past enduring. 
The ladies arm-in-arm in clusters, 
As great and gracious a' as sisters; 
But hear their absent thoughts o' ither. 
They're a' run deils an' jads thegither. 
Whyles o'er the wee bit cup and platie, 
They sip the scandal potion pretty ; 
Or lee lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks 
Pore owre the devil's pictur'd beuks ; 
Stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard, 
An' cheat like ony unhang'd blackguard. 

There's some exception, man an' woman ; 
But this is Gentry's life in common. 

By this the sun was out o' sight : 
An' darker gloaming brought the night : 
The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone j 
The kye stood rowtin' i' the loan : 
When up they gat an shook their lugs, 
Reioic'd they were na men but dogs ; 
And each took aif his several way, 
Resolv'd to meet some ither day. 



There let him bouse, and deep carouse 

Wi' bumpers flowing o'er, 
Till he forgets his loves or debts. 

An' minds his griefs no more. 

Solomon's Proverbs, xxxi. 6, 7. 



SCOTCH DRINK, 



Gie him strong drink, until he wink, 
That's sinking in despair ; 

An* liquor guid to fire his bluid, 
TJiat's prest wi' grief an' care; 



Let other poets raise a fracas, 

'Bout vines, and wines, and drunken Baccfnu, 

An' crabbit names an' stories wrack us. 

An' grate our lug, 
I sing the juice Scots hear can mak us, 

In glass or jug. 

O Thou, my Muse ! guid auld Scotch Drink 
M'^hether thro' wimpling worms thou jink, 
Or, richly brown, ream o'er the brink, 

In glorious faeni, 
Inspire me, till I lisp and v/ink. 

To sing thy name. 

Let husky Wheat the haughs adorn, 
And Aits set up their awnie horn, 
An' Pease and Beans at e'en or morn. 

Perfume the plain, 
Leeze me on thee, John Barleycorn, 

Thou king o' grain ! 

On thee aft Scotland chows her cood, 
In souple scones, the wail o' food ! 
Or tumbliu' in the boiling flood, t 

Wi' kail an' beef; 
But when thou pours thy strong heart's blood, 

There thou shines chief. 

Food fills the warae, an' keeps us livin' ; 
Tho' life's a gift no worth receivin'. 
When heavy dragg'd wi' pine and grievin' ; 

But oil'd by thee, 
The wheels o' life gae down-hill, scrievin', 

Wi' rattlin glee. 

Thou clears the head o' doited Lear ; 
Thou cheers the heart o' drooping Care ; 
Thou strings the nerves o' Labour sair ; 

At's weary toil ; 
Thou even brightens dark Despair 

Wi' gloomy smile. 

Aft, clad in massy silver weed, 
Wi' Gentles thou erects thy head ; 
Yet humbly kind in time o' need, 

The poor man's wine, 
His wee drap parritch, or his bread, 

Thou kitchens fine. 

Thou art the life o' public haunts ; 
But thee, what were our fairs and rants ? 
Ev'n godly meetings o' the saunts. 

By thee inspir'd, 
When gaping they besiege the tents, 

Are doubly fir'd. 

That merry night we get the corn in, 
O sweetly then thou reams the horn in ! 
Or reekin on a New-year morning 
In cog or bicker 



BURNS' WORKS. 



All' just a wee drap sp'ritual burn in, 
An' gusty suckei- ! 

When Vulcan gies his bellows breath, 
An' ploughmen gather wi' their graith, 
O rare ! to see the fizz an' freath 

r the lugget caup ! 
Then Bvrnewin * comes on like death 
At ev'ry chaup. 

Nae mercy, then, for aim or steel ; 
The brawnie, bainie, ploughman chiel', 
Brings hard owrehip, wi' sturdy wheel, 

The strong forehammer, 
Till block an' studdie ring an' reel 

Wi' dinsome clamoui'. 

When skirlin weanies see the light, 
Thou maks the gossips clatter bright. 
How fumlin' cuifs their dearies slight, 

Wae worth the name ! 
Nae howdie gets a social night, 

Or plack frae them. 

When neebours anger at a plea, 
An just as wud as wud can be. 
How easy can the barley bree 

Cement the quarrel ; 
It's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee, 

To taste the barrel. 

Alake ! that e'er my Muse has reason 
To wyte her counti-ymen wi' treason ; 
But mony daily weet their weason 

Wi' liquors nice, 
An' hardly, in a winter's season, 

E'er spier her price. 

Wae worth that brandy, burning trash, 
Fell source o' monie a pain an' brash ! 
Twins monie a poor, doylt, drunken hash, 

O' half his daj^s ; 
An' sends, beside, auld Scotland's cash 
To her warst faes. 

Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well ! 
Ye chief, to you ray tale I tell. 
Poor plackless devils like mysel' ! 

It sets you ill, 
Wi* bitter, dearthfu' wines to mell. 
Or foreign gill. 

May gravels round his blather wrench, 
An* gouts torment him inch by inch, 
Wha twists his gr untie wi' a glunch 

O' sour disdain, 
Out owre a glass o' whisky punch 

Wi' honest men. 

O Whisky f soul o' plays an' pranks ! 
Accept a Bardie's humble thanks ! 
When wantmg thee, what tuneless cranks 
Are my poor verses ! 



♦ Burnewirt^-Burnthe-xvind • 
appropriat* title. 



-the blacksmith — an 



Thou coroes—— they rattle i' their r&nki 
At ither'a Or— s ! 

Thee, Ferintosh ! O sadly lost ! 
Scotland, lament frae coast to coast ! 
Now colic grips, and barkin hoast. 

May kill us a' ; 
For loyal Forbes' chartered boast 

Is ta'en awa' ! 

Thae curst horse leeches o' th' Excise, 
Wha mak the Whisky Stells their prize 1 
Haud up thy han', Deil ! ance, twice, thrice ! 

There, seize the bUnkers ! 
An' bake them up in brunstane pies 

For poor d — n'd drinkers. 

Fortune ! if thou'U but gie me still 
Hale breeks, a scone, an' Whisky gill^ 
An' I'owth o' rhyme to rave at will, 
Tak a' the rest, 
An' de;il't about as thy blind skill 

Directs thee best. 



THE AUTHOR S 

EARNEST CRY AND PRAYER* 

TO THE 

SCOTCH REPRESENTATIVES 

IN THE ' 

HOUSE OF COMMONS. 



Dearest of Distillation ! last and best 

How art thou lost ! Parody on Milton. 



Ye Irish Lords, Ye Knights an' Squires, 
Wha represent our brughs an' shires, 
And doucely manage our affairs 

In parliament. 
To you a simple Poets prayers 

Are humbly sent. 

Alas ! my roupet Muse is hearse ! 
Your honours' hearts wi' grief 'twad pierce 
To see her sittin' on her a — 

Low i' the dust. 
An' screichin' out prosaic verse. 

An' like to bmst ! 

Tell them wha hae the chief direction, 
Scotland an' rue's in great affliction. 
E'er sin' they laid that curst restriction 

On AquavitcE ; 
An* rouse them up to strong conviction 
An' move their pity. 



* This was written before the act anent the Scotch 
Distilleries, of session 1786 ; for which Scotland and 
the Author return theit most grateful thanks. 



POEMS. 



Stand forth, an' tell yon Premier Youth, 
The honest, open, naked truth : 
Tell him o' mine and Scotland's drouth, 

His servants huinble ; 
The muckle devil blaw ye south, 

If ye dissemble ! 

Does ony great man glunch an' gloom ! 
Speak out, an' never fash your thumb : 
Let posts an' pensions sink or soom 

Wi' them wha grant 'em ; 
If honestly they canna come. 

Fax better want 'em. 

In gath'ring votes you were na slack ; 
Now stand as tightly by your tack ; 
Ne'er claw your lug, an fidge your back, 

An' hum an haw ; 
But raise your arm, an' tell your crack 

Before them a' 

Paint Scotland greeting owre her thrissle ; 
Her mutchkin stoup as toom's a whissle ; 
An' d-mn'd Excisemen in a bussle, 

Seizin' a stcll, 
Triumphant crushin't like a mussel, 

Or lampit shell. 

Then on the tither hand present her, 
A blackguard Smuggler right behint her. 
An' cheek-for-chow, a chuffie Vintner, 

Colleaguing join. 
Picking her pouch as bare as winter 

Of a' kind coin. 

Is there, that bears the name o' Scot, 
But feels his heart's bluid rising hot. 
To see his poor auld Mither's pot 

Thus dung in staves, 
An' plunder'd o' her hindmost groat 

By gallows knaves ? 

Alas ! I'm but a nameless wight, 
Trode i' the mire out o' sight ! 
But could I like Montgomeries fight, 

Or gab like Boswell, 
There's some sark-necks I wad draw tight. 
An' tie some hose well. 

God bless your Honours, can ye see't, 
The kind, auld, cantie Carlin greet, 
An' no get warmly to your feet. 

An gar them hear it, 
An' tell them wi' a patriot heat. 

Ye winua bear it ! 

Some o' you nicely ken the laws, 
To round the period an' pause, 
An' wi' rhetoric clause on clause 

To mak harangues ; 
Then echo thro' Saint Stephen's wa's 

Auld Scotland's wrangs. 

Dempster, a true blue Scot I'se warran ; 
Thee, aith-detesting, chaste Kilkerran ;* 



^ix' that glib-gabbet Highland Baroli, 

The Laird o' Graham i* 
\i\ ane, a chap that's damn'd auldfarran, 
* Dundas his name. 

Erskine, a spunkie Norland billie ; 
True Camjjhells, Frederick an' Hay ; 
An' Livinystone, the bauld Sir Willie ; 

An' niony ithers. 
Whom auld Demosthenes or Tuljy 

Might own for brithers. 

Arouse, my boys ! exert your mettle. 
To get auld Scotland back her kettle ; 
Or faith ! I'll wad my new pleugh-pettle, 

Ye'll see't or lang, 
She'll teach you, wi' a reekiu' whittle, 
Anither sang. 

This while she's been in canc'rous mood. 
Her lost Militia fir'd her bluid ; 
(Deil na they never mair do guid, 

Play'd her that pliskie !) 
An' now she's like to rin red-wud 

About her Whisky. 

An' L — d if ance they pit her till't. 
Her tartan petticoat she'll kilt. 
An' durk an' pistol at her belt. 

She'll tak the streets, 
An' rin her whittle to the hilt, 

I' the first she meets ! 

For G — d sake. Sirs ! then speak her fair, 
An' straik her cannie wi' the hair, 
An' to the muckle house repair, 

Wi' instant speed, 
An' strive, wi' a' your wit an' lear. 

To get remead. 

Yon ill-tongu'd tinkler, Charlie Fox, ^ 
May taunt you wi' his jeers an' mocks ; 
But gie him't het, my hearty cocks ! 

E'en cowe the caddie 
An* send him to his dicing box 

An' sportin' lady. 

Tell yon guid bluid o' auld Bockonnock*s, 

I'll be his debt twa mashlum bannocks. 

An' drink his health in auld iVanse Tinnocks,\ 

Nine times a week, 
If he some scheme, like tea and winnocks. 

Wad kindly seek. 

Could he some commutation broach, 
I'll pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch, 
He need na fear their foul reproach 
Nor erudition. 
Yon mixtie-maxtie queer hotch-potch, 
The Coalition. 

Auld Scotland has a raucle tongue ; 
She's just a devil wi' a rung ; 



• Sir Adam Ferguson. 



• The present Duke of Montrose.— (1800.) 

t A worthy old Hostess of the Author's in Mauch- 

line, where he sometimes studies Politics over a glass 

of guid auld Scotgh Drink. 



6 



BURNS' WORKS. 



An' if she promise auld or young 

To tak their part, 

Tho' by the neck she should be sti-ung, 
She'll no desert. 

An' now, ye chosen Five-and- Forty, 
May still your Mither's heart support ye : 
Then, tho' a Minister grow dorty, 

An' kick your place, 
Ye'll snap your fingers, poor an' hearty, 

Before his face. 

God bless your Honours a' your days, 
Wi' soups o' kail and brats o' daise, 
In spite o' a* the thievish kaes 

That haunt St Jamie s ■' 
Your humble poet sings an' prays 

While Jiab his name is. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Let half-starv'd slaves, in warmer skies 
See future wines, rich clust'ring rise ; 
Their lot auld Scotland ne'er envies. 

But blithe and frisky, 
She eyes her freeborn martial boys, 

Tak aff their Whisky. 

What tho' their Phoebus kinder warms. 
While fragrance blooms and beauty charms ! 
When wretches range, in faraish'd swarms, 

The scented groves. 
Or hounded forth, dishonour arms 

In hungry droves. 

Their gun's a burden on their shouther ; 
They downa bide the stink o' pouther j 
Their bauldest thought's a hank'ring swither 

To Stan' or rin, 
Till skelp — a shot — they're aff, a' throwther, 

To save their skin. 

But bring a Scotsman frae his hill, 
Clap in his cheek a Highland gill, 
Say, such is royal George's will, 

An' there's the foe, 
He has nae thought but how to kill 
Twa at a blow. 

Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him ; 
Death comes, with fearless eye he sees him ; 
Wi' bluidy hand a welcome gies him ; 
An' when he fa's, 
His latest draught o' breathin' lea'es him 
In faint huzzas. 

Sages their solemn een may steek, 
An' raise a philosophic reek, 
An* physically causes seek. 

In clime an' season ; 
But tell me Whiskr/'s name in Greek, 

I'll tell the reason. 

Scotland, my auld, respected Mither ! 
Tho' whyles ye rooistify your leather, 



Till whare ye sit, on craps o' heather. 
Ye tine your dam ; 

(^Freedom and Whisky gang thegither !) 
Tak aff your dram ! 



THE HOLY FAIR * 



A robe of seeming truth and trust 

Hid crafty Observation ; 
And secret hung with poison 'd crust. 

The dirk of Defamation : 
A mask that like the gorget show'd 

Dye-varying on the pigeon ; 
And for a mantle large and broad. 

He ^vrapt him in Beligion. 

Uypocrisy-a -la-modi. 



I. 

trpo>f a simmer Sunday morn, 

When Nature's face is fair, 
I walked forth to view the corn. 

An' snuff the caUar air. 
The rising sun owre Galston muirs, 

Wi' glorious light was glintin' ; 
The hares were hirplin' down the furs, 

The lav 'rocks they were chantin' 

Fu' sweet that day. 

11. 

As lightsomely I glowr'd abroad 

To see a scene sae gay, 
Three hizzie?, early at the road, 

Cam skelpin' up the way ; 
Twa had manteeles o' dolefu' black, 

But ane wi' lyart lining ; 
The tliird that gaed a wee a-back, 

Was in the fashion shining, 

Fu' gay that day. 

III. 

The twa appear'd like sisters twin, 

In feature, form, an' claes : 
Their visage wither'd, lang, an' thin. 

An' sour as ony slaes ; 
The third came up, hap-stap-an'-loup. 

As light as ony lammie. 
An' wi' a curchie low did stoop, 

As soon as e'er she saw me, 

Fu' kind that day. 

IV. 

Wi bannet aff, quoth I, ' Sweet lass, 

I think ye seem to ken me ; 
I'm sure I've seen that bonnie face. 

But yet I canna name ye.' 
Quo' she, an' laughin' as she spak. 

An' tak's me by the hands, 
'< Ye, for my sake, ha'e gi'en the feck 

Of a' the ten commands 

A screed some day. 



* Holy Fair is a common phrase in the west of Scot, 
land for a sacramental occasion. 



POEMS. 



V. 

" My name is Fun — your cronie dear, 

The nearest friend ye ha'e ; 
An* this is Superstition here, 

An' that's Hypocrisy. 
I'm gaun to Holy Fair, 

To spend an hour in daffin' ; 
Gin ye'll go there, yon ruukled pair, 

We will get famous laughin* 

At them this day.' 



Quoth I, ' With a' my heart I'll do't ; 

I'll get my Sunday's sark on, 
An' meet you on the holy spot ; 

Faith we'se hae fine remarkin' !' 
Then I gaed hame at crowdie time, 

An' soon I made me ready ; 
For roads were clad, frae side to side, 

Wi' monie a weary body. 

In droves that day. 

VII. 
Here farmers gaslr, in ridin' graitli 

Gaed hoddin' by their cotters : 
Their swankies young, in braw braid-claith 

Are springin' o'er the gutters. 
The lasses, skelpin* barefoot, thrang, 

In silks an' scarlets glitter ; 
Wi' sweet-milk cheese in monie a whang, 

An' farls bak'd wi' butter, 

Fu' crump that day. 

VIII. 

When by the plate we set our nose, 

Weel heaped up wi' ha'pence, 
A greedy glowr Black Bonnet throws, 

An' we maun draw our tippence. 
Then in we go to see the show. 

On ev'ry side they're gatherin', 
Some carrying deals, some chairs an' stools, 

An' some are busy bletherin'. 

Right loud that day. 

IX. 
Here stands a shed to fend the show'rs, 

An' screen our countra Gentry, 
There, racer Jess, an' twa-three whores, 

Are blinkin' at the entry. 
Here sits a raw of tittlin' jades, 

Wi' heavin' breast and bare neck, 
An' there a batch of wabster lads, 

Blackguardin' frae K ck, 



For fun this day. 



Here some are thinkin' on their sins, 

An' some upo' their claes ; 
Ane curses feet that fyl'd his shins, 

Anither sighs an' prays ; 
On this hand sits a chosen swatch, 

Wi* scrcw'd up grace-proud faces ; 
On that a set o' chaps at watch, 

Thraug winkia' on the lasses 

To chairs that day. 



XI. 

O happy is the man an' blest ! 

Nae wonder that it pride him ! 
Wha's ain dear lass, that he likes best, 

Comes clinkin' down beside him ! 
Wi' arm repos'd on the chair-back, 

He sweetly does compose him ! 
Which, by degrees, slips round her neck, 

An's loof upon her bosom 

Unkenn'd that day. 

XII. 

Now a' the congregation o'er 

Is silent expectation ; 
For speels the holy door 

Wi' tidings o' damnation. 
Should Hornie, as in ancient days, 

'Mang sons o' God present him, 
The vera sight o' 's face, 

To's ain het hame had sent him 

Wi' fright that day. 

XIII. 

Hear how he clears the points o' faith 

Wi' rattlin' an' thumpiu' ! 
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath. 

He's stampin' an' he's jumpin' ' 
His lengthen'd chin, his turn'd-up snout. 

His eldiitch squeel and gestures, 
Oh, how they fire the heart devout. 

Like cantharidian plasters, 

On sic a day ! 

XIV. 

But hark ! the tent has chang'd its voice , 
There's peace and rest nae langer : 

For a* the real judges rise. 
They canna sit for anger. 

opens out his cauld harangues 



On practice and on morals ; 
An' afF the godly pour in thrangs. 
To gie the jars an' barrels 

A lift that day. 

XV. 

What signifies his barren shine 

Of moral pow'rs and reason ? 
His English style, an' gesture fine, 

Are a' clean out o' season. 
Like Socrates or Antonine, 

Or some auld pagan Heathen, 
The moral man he does define. 

But ne'er a word o' faith in 

That's right that <lay 

XVL 

In guid time comes an antidote 
Against sic poison'd nostrum > 

For -, frae the water-fit, 

Ascends the holy rostrum ; 

See, up he's got the word o' God, 
An' meek an* mim has view'd it, 



8 



BURNS' WORKS. 



While Common-sense has ta'ea th« road, 
An' aff, au' up the Cowgate,* 

Fast, fast, that day. 

XVII. 

Wee neist the guard reheves, 

An' orthodoxy raibles, 
Tho' io his heart he weel beUeves, 

And thinks it auld wives' fables : 
But, faith ; the birkie wants a manse 

So cannUy he hums them ; 
Ahho' his carnal wit and sense 

Like hafflins-ways o'ercomes him 

At times that day. 

XVIIL 

Now but an' ben, the change-house fills, 

Wi' yill-caup commentators : 
Here's crying out for bakes and gills, 

And there the pint stoup clatters ; 
While thick an' thrang, an' loud an' lang, 

Wi' logic, an' wi' Scripture, 
They raise a din, that in the end, 

Is like to breed a rupture 

O* wrath that day. 

XIX. 

Leeze rae on Drink ! it gi'es us mail" 

Than either School or College : 
It kindles wit, it waukens lair. 

It pangs us fou o' knowledge. 
Be't whisky gill, or penny wheep, 

Or ony stronger potion, 
It never fails, on drinking deep. 

To kittle up oui- notion 

By night or day. 

XX. 

The lads an' lasses, blythely bent 

To mind baith saul an' body, 
Sit round the table weel content, 

An' steer about the toddy. 
On this ane's dress, an' that ane's leuk, 

They're makin' observations ; 
While some are cozie i' the neuk. 

An' forming assignations 

To meet some day. 

XXI. 

But now the L — d's ain trumpet touts, 

Till a' the hills are rairin'. 
An' echoes back return the shouts ; 

Black is na spairin' : 

His piercing words, like Highland swords, 

Divide the joints an' marrow ; 
His talk o' Hell, where devils dwell, 

Our very sauls does harrow -f 

Wi' fright that day. 

XXII. 

A vast, unbottom'd boundless pit, 
Fill'd fou o' lowin' brunstane, 



• A street so called, which faces the ieni in • 
I Shakespeare's Hamlet, 



WTia's ragin' flame an' scorchin' heat. 
Wad melt the hardest whun-stane ! 

The half asleep start up wi' fear. 
An' think they hear it roaain'. 

When presently it does appear, 
'Twas but some neighbour snorin' 
Asleep that day. 

xxni. 

'Twad be owre lang a tale to tell 

How monie stories past. 
An' how they crowded to the yill, 

When they were a' dismist : 
How drink gaed round, in cogs an* caups, 

Amang the furms an' benches ; 
An' cheese an' bread, frae women's laps. 

Was dealt about in lunches 

An' dawds that day. 

XXIV. 

In comes a gaucie, gash guidwife, 

An' sits down by the fire, 
Syne draws her kebbuck an' her knife, 

The lasses they are shyer. 
The auld guidmen, about the grace, 

Frae side to side they bother. 
Till some ane by his bonnet lays,. 

An' gi'es them't like a tether, 

Fu' lang that day. 

XXV. 

Waesucks I for him that gets nae lass, 

Or lasses that hae naething ! 
Sma' need has he to say a grace 

Or melvie his braw claithing I 
O wives be mindfu' ance youisel* 

How bonnie lads ye wanted, 
An' dinna for a kebbuck-heel. 

Let lasses be afironted 

On sic a day ! 

XXVL 

Now Clinkumbell, wi' rattlin' tow. 

Begins to jow an' croon ; 
Some swagger hame, the best they dow, 

Some wait the afternoon. 
At slaps the billies halt a blink, 

Till lasses strip their shoon : 
Wi' faith an' hope, an' love an' drink. 

They're a' in famous tune, 

For crack that day. 

xxvn. 

How monie hearts this day converts 

O' sinners and o' lasses ! 
Their heaits o' stane, gin night, are gaue 

As saft as ony flesh is. 
There's some are fou o' love divine ; 

There's some are fou o' brandy ; 
An' mony jobs that day begin, 

May end in houghmagandie 

Some ither day. 



POEMS. 



DEATH AND DOCTOR HORN- I red ye wed, tak care e' skaith. 



BOOK: 

A TRUE STORY. 

Some books are lies frae end to end, 
And some great lies were never penn'd : 
Ev'n Ministers, they hae been kenn'd, 

In holy rapture, 
A rousing whid, at times, to vend, 

And nail't wi' Scripture. 

But this that I am guun to tell, 
Which lately on a night befell, 
Is just as true's the De'ils in hell 

Or Dublin city : 
That e'of he nearer comes oursel' 

'S a muckle pity. 

The Clachan yiU had made me canty, 
I was nae fou, but just had plenty ; 
I stacher'd whiles, but yet took tent aye 

To free the ditches ; 
An' hillocks, stanes, an' bushes, kenn'd aye 

Frae ghaists an' witches. 

The rising moon began to glow'r 
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre ; 
To count her horns, wi' a' my power, 

I set mysel' ; 
But whether she had three or four, 

I couldua tell. 

I was come round about the hill. 
And todjin down on Willes mill, 
Setting my staif wi' a' my skill. 

To keep me sicker ; 
The' leeward whyles, against my will, 

I took a bicker. 

I there \v\ Something did forgather, 

That put me in an eerie swither : 

An* awfu* scythe, out-owre ae shouther. 

Clear-dangling, hang j 
A three-taed leister on the ither, 

Lay, large and lang. 

Its stature seem'd lang Scotch ells twa, 
The queerest shape that e'er I saw, 
For fient a wame it had ava ; 

And then, its shanks, 
They were as thin, as sharp, an' sma' 

As cheeks o' branks. 

' Guid-een,'quo'I; 'Friend! hae ye been maw in' 
"When ither folk are busy sawin' ?' * 
It seem'd to mak' a kind o' stan', 

But naething spak : 
At length, says I, * Friend, where ye gaun, 

Will ye go back ?' 

It spak right howe, — < My name is Death, 
But be na fley'd.' — Quoth I, ' Guid faith, 
Ye're maybe come to stap my breath ; 
But tent me, biUie : 



See there's a guJly !' 

' Guidman,' quo' he, * put up your whittle, 
I'm no design'd to try its mettle ; 
But if I did, I wad be kittle 

To be mislear'd, 
I wadna mind it, no, that spittle 

Out owre my beard. 

' Weel, weel !' says I, ' a bargain be't ; 
Come, gie's your hand, an* sae we're gree't ; 
We'll ease our shanks an' tak a seat. 

Come gie's your news ; 
This while * ye hae been raony a gate. 

At mony a house.' 

* Ay, ay ! ' quo' he, an' shook his head, 
' Its een a lang, lang time indeed 
Sin' I began to nick the thread. 

An' choke the breath : 
Folk maun do something for their bread. 

An' sae maun Death. 

' Sax thousand years are nearhand fled 

Sin' I was to the hutching bred. 

An' mony a scheme in vain's been laid. 

To stap or scar me ; 
Till aue Hornbook 's f taen up the trade. 

An' faith, he'll warn- me. 

* Ye ken Jock Hornbook, i' the Clachan, 
Deil mak his king's hood in a spleuchan ! 
He's grown sae weel acquaint wi' Buckan \ 

An' ither chaps, 
The weans baud out their fingers laughin' 
An' pouk my hips. 

* See, here's a scythe, and tliere's a dart, 
They hae pierc'd mony a gallant hi-art : 
But Doctor Hornbook, wi' his art 

And cursed skill. 
Has made them baith no worth a f— t, 

Damn'd haet they'll kill. 

' 'Twas but yestreen, nae farther gaen, 

I threw a noble throw at ane ; 

Wi' less, I'm sore, I've hundreds slain ; 

But deil-ma-care. 
It just play'd dirl on the bane. 

But did nae niair. 

* Hornbook was by, wi' ready art. 
And had sae fortified the part. 
That when I looked to my dart, 

It was sae blunt, 
Fient haet o't wad hae pierc'd the heart 
Of a kail-runt. 

* I drew my scythe in sic a fury, 



.* This rencounter happened in seed-time, 1785. 



♦ An epidemical fever was tlisn raging in that country. 
t This gentlemiui. Dr. Hornbook, is, professionally 
a brother of tlie Sovereign Order of tlie Ferula; but 
by intuition and inspiration, is at once an Aj^thecary, 
Surgeon, aiid Physician. 

% Buclian's Domestic Medicine. 



w 



BURNS' WORKS. 



I nearhand coupit wi' my hurry, 
But yet the baiild Apothecary 

Withstood the shock ; 
I might as weel hae tried a quarry 

O' hard whin rock. 

* Ev'n them he canna get attended, 
Altho' their face he ne'er had ken'd it, 
Just in a kail-blade, and send it, 

As scon's he smells't, 
Baith their disease, and what will mend it, 
At once he tells' t. 

* An' then a' doctors' saws and whittles, 
Of a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles, 
A' kinds o' boxes, mugs, an' bottles. 

He's sure to hae ; 
Their Latin names as fast he rattles 
As A B C. 



* Calces o' fossils, earths, and trees ; 
True Sal-marinum o' the seas ; 
The Farina of beans and pease. 

He has't in plenty ; 
Aqua-fontis, what you please. 

He can content ye. 

* Forbye some new, uncommon weapons, 
Urinus Spiritus of capons ; 

Or Mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings j 
DistUl'd per se ; 

Sal-alkali o' Midge-tail clippins, 

An' mony mae.* 

* Waes me for Johnny GecTs Hole * now j' 
Q\io' I, ' If that the news be true ! 

His braw calf-ward where gowans gi-ew, 
Sae white an' bonnie, 

Nae doubt they'll rive it wi' the plough ; 

They'll ruin Johnny I* 

The creature grain'd an eldritch laugh, 
An* says, ' Ye need na yoke the pleugh, 
Kirk-yards will soon be till'd eneugh, 

Tak ye nae feai' ; 
They'll a' be trench'd wi' mony a sheugh 

In twa-three year. 

* Whare I kill'd ane a fair strae death, 
By loss o' blood or want o' breath. 
This night I'm free to tak my aith, 

That Hornbook's skill 
Has clad a score i' their last claith, 
By drap an' pill. 

* An honest Wabster to his trade, 

Whase wife's twa nieves were scarce weel bred. 
Gat tippence-worth to mend her head. 

When it was sair ; 
The wife slade cannie to her bed. 

But ne'er spak mair. 

* A countra Laird had ta'en the batts, 
Or some curmurring in his guts. 



» The grave-digger. 



His only son for Hornbook sets. 

An' pays him weU ; 

The lad, for twa guid gimmer pets. 

Was laird himsel'. 

' A bonnie lass, ye ken her name. 

Some iU-brewn drink had hov'd her wame ; 

She trusts hersel', to hide the shame. 

In Hornbook's care ; 
Horn sent her aflF to her lang hame. 

To hide it there. 

' That's just a swatch o' Hornbook's way ; 
Thus goes he on from day to day, 
Thus does he poison, kill, an' slay, 

An's weel paid for't ; 
Yet stops me o' my lawfu' prey, 

Wi' his damn'd dirt. 

* But hark ! I'll tell you of a plot, 
Though dinna ye be speaking o't ; 
I'U nail the self- conceited sot, 

As dead's a herrin* ; 
Neist time we meet, I'll wad a groat, 

He gets his fairin' !' 

But just as he began to tell. 

The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell, 

Some wee short hour ayont the twal. 

Which rais'd us baith 
I took the way that pleased mysel'. 

And sae did Death. 



THE BRIGS OF AYR: 



A POEM. 



Inscribed to J. B- 



EsQ. Ayr. 



The simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough, 
Learning his tuneful trade from every bough ; 
The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush. 
Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green 

thorn bush : 
The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill. 
Or deep-toned plovers, grey, wild whistling o'er 

the hill ; 
Shall he, nurst in the Peasant's lowly shed, 
To hardy independence bravely bred, 
By early Poverty to hardship steel'd, 
And train'd to arms in stern Misfortune's 

field- 
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes, 
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes ? 
Or labour hard the panegyric close, 
With all the venal soul of dedicating Prose? 
No ! though his artless strains he rudely sings. 
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings. 
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard, 
Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward. 
Still, if some Patron's generous care he trace. 
Skilled in the secret, to bestow with grace ; 

When B befriends his humble name, 

And hands the rustic stranger up to fame, 



POEMS. 



11 



With heait-felt throes his grateful bosom 

swells, 
The godlike bliss, to give alone excels. 



*Twas when the stacks get on their winter 

hap, 
And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap : 
Potatoe bings are snugged up frae skaith 
Of coming Winter's biting, fiosty breath ; 
The bees, rejoicing o'er their simmer toils, 
Unnumber'd buds an' flowers' delicious spoils, 
Seal'd up with frugal care in massive waxen 

piles, 
Are doom'd by man, that tyrant o'er the weak. 
The death o* devils, smoor'd wi' brimstone 

reek : 
The thundering guns are heard on ev'ry side, 
The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide ; 
The feather'd field-mates, bound by Nature's tie, 
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie : 
(What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds. 
And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds) ! 
Nae mair the flow'r in field or meadow springs : 
Nae mair the grove wi' airy concert rings. 
Except, perhaps, the Robin's whistling glee. 
Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree : 
The hoary morns precede the sunny davs. 
Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide 

blaze. 
While thick the gossamour waves wanton in 

the rays. 
'Twas in that season, when a simple bard, 
Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward, 
Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr, 
By whim inspired, or haply prest wi* care. 
He left his bed, and took his wayward route, 
And down by Simpson's* wheel'd the left 

about : 
(Whether impell'd by all-directing Fate 
To witness what I after shall narrate ; 
Or whether rapt in meditation high, 
He waoder'd out he knew not where nor why). 
The drowsy Dungeon-clock,f had number'd two. 
And Wallace tower f had sworn the fact was 

true : 
The tide-swoln Firth, with sullen-sounding 

roar. 
Thro' the still night dash'd hoarse along the 

shore : 
All else was hush'd as Nature's closed e'e ; 
The silent moon shone high o'er tow'r and tree : 
The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, 
Crept, gently-crusting, o'er the glittering stream. 

When, lo ! on either hand the list'ning bard, 
The clanging sough of whistling wings he 

heard ; 
Two dusky forms dart thro' the midnight air. 
Swift as the Gos \ drives on the wheeling hare ; 



♦ A noted tavern at the Atild Brig end. 

t The two steeples. 

t The gos-hawk, or falcon. 



Ane on th' Auld Brig his airy shape uprears. 

The ither flutters o'er the rising piers : 

Our warlike Rhymer instantly descry'd 

The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside. 

(That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke, 

An' ken the lingo of the sp'ritual folk ; 

Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies, a* they ca"n explain them. 

And ev'n the vera deils they brawly ken them.) 

Auld Brig appear'd of ancient Pictish race, 

The very wrinkles Gothic in his face : 

He seera'd as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang. 

Yet toughly doure, he bade an unco bang. 

New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat, 

That he, at London, frae ane Adams got ; 

In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a bead, 

Wi' virls and whirlygigums at the head. 

The Goth was stalking round with anxious 

search. 
Spying the time-worn flaws in every arcb ; 
It chanc'd his new-come neebor took his e'e, 
And e'en a vex'd an' angry heart had he ! 
Wi' thieveless sneer to see each modish mien. 
He, down the water, gies him thus guide'en— 

AULD BRIG. 

I doubt na', frien', ye'll think ye' re nae sheep- 

shank, 
Ance ye were streekit o'er frae bank to bank ! 
But gin ye be a brig as auld as me, 
Tho' faith that day I doubt ye'll never see ; 
There'll be, if that day come, I'll wad a boddle, 
Some fewer whigmaleeries in your noddle. 

NEW BRIG. 

Auld Vandal, ye but show your little mense, 
Just much about it wi' your scanty sense ; 
Will your poor narrow foot-path of a street. 
Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they 

meet, 
Your ruin'd formless bulk, o' stane an' lime. 
Compare wi' bonnie Brigs o' modern time ? 
There's men o' taste would tak' the Ducat- 
stream,* 
Tho' they should cast the very sark and swim, 
Ere they would grate their feelings wi' the view 
Of sic an ugly Gothic hulk as you. 

AULD BRIG. 

Conceited gowk ! puff'd up wi' windy pride ! 
This raonie a year I've stood the flood an' tide ; 
An' tho' wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn, 
I'll be a Brig when ye're a shapeless cairn ! 
As yet ye little ken about the matter. 
But twa-three winters will inform ye better. 
When heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains, 
Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains ; 
When from the hills where springs the brawl- 
ing Coil, 
Or stately Lugar\ mossy fountains boil. 
Or where the Greenock winds his moorland 

course. 
Or haunted Garpal f draws his feeble source, 



* A noted ford, just above the Auld Brig. 
t The banks of Garpal fVater is one of the few places 



12 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Arous'd byblust'ring winds and spotting thowes. 
In mony a torrent down his sna-broo rowes ; 
While crashing ice, borne on the roaring speat, 
Sweeps dams, an' mills, an' brigs, a' to the 

gate ; 
And from Glcnbiick* down to the Ration ke7/,f 
Auld Aj/r is just one lengthen'd tumbling sea ; 
Then down ye'U hurl, deil nor ye never rise ! 
And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring 

skies, 
A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost, 
That Architecture's noble art is lost ! 

NEW BRIG. 

Fine Architecture, trowth, I needs must say't 

o't! 
The L — d be thankit that we've tint the gate 

o't! 
Gaunt, ghastly, gaist-allm-ing edifices, 
Hanging with threat'ning jut, like precipices ; 
O'er-arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves. 
Supporting roofs fantastic, stony groves ; 
Windows and doors, in nameless sculpture 

drest, 
With order, symmetry, or taste unblest ; 
Forms like some bedlam statuary's dream. 
The crax'd creations of misguided whim ; 
Forms might be worshipp'd on the bended 

knee, 
And still the second dread command be free, 
Their likeness is not found on earth, in air, or 

sea. 
Mansions that would disgrace the building taste 
of any mason, reptile, bird, or beast ; 
Fit only for a doited Monkish race, 
Or frosty maids forsworn the dear embrace. 
Or cuifs of later times, wha held the notion 
That sullen gloom was sterling true devotion ; 
Fancies that our guid Brugh denies protection. 
And soon may they expire, unblest with re- 
■* surrection ! 

AULD BRIG. 

O ye, my dear-reraember'd ancient yeallngs, 
Were ye but here to share my wounded feelings ! 
Ye worthy Proveses, an' mony a Jiailie, 
Wha in the paths o' righteousness did toil aye ; 
Ye dainty Deacons, an ye douce Conveners, 
To whom our moderns are but causey- 
cleaners ; 
Ye godly Councils wha hae blest this town ; 
Ye godly Brethren of the sacred gown, 
Wha meekly gae your hurdles to the smiters ; 
And (what would now be strange) ye godly 

Writers : 
A' ye douce folk I've borne aboon the broo, 
Were ye but hero, what would ye say or do ! 
How would your spirits groan in deep vex- 
ation, 
To see each melancholy alteration ; 



in the West of Scotland, where those fancy-scaring be- 
ings, known by the name of Ghaists, still continue 
pertinaciously to inhabit. 

* The source of the river Ayr. 

t A small lanchug-place above the large key. 



And agonizing, curse the time and pkce 

When ye begat the base, degenerate race ! 

Nao langer Rev'rend Men, their country's 

glory,_ 
In plain braid Scots hold forth a plain braid 

story ! 
Nae langer thrifty Citizens, an' douce, 
Meet owre a pint, or in the Council house : 
But staumrel, corky-headed, graceless Gentry, 
The herryment and ruin of the country ; 
Men, three parts made by tailors and by bar- 
bers, 

Wha waste your well-hain'd gear on d d 

new Brigs and Harbours ! 

NEW BRIG. 

Now baud you there ! for faith ye've said 

enough. 
And muckle mair than ye can mak to through. 
As for your Priesthood, I shall say but little, 
Corbies and Clergy are a shot right kittle : 
But, imder favour o' your langer beard. 
Abuse o' ]\Iagistrates might weel be spared : 
To liken them to your auld warld squad, 
I must needs say comparisons are odd. 
In Ayr, Wag-wits nae mair can hae a handle 
To mouth ' a Citizen,' a term o* scandal : 
Nae mair the Council waddles down the 

street 
In all the pomp of ignorant conceit ; 
Men wha grew wise priggin' owre hops an' 

raisins. 
Or gather'd lib'ral views in Bonds and Seisins. 
If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp, 
Had shored them with a glimmer of his lamp, 
And would to Common-sense, for once betrayed 

them. 
Plain dull Stupidity stept kindly in to aid 

them. 



What farther clishmaclaver might been said. 
What bloody wars, if Sprites had blood to 

shed, 
No man can tell ; but all before their sight, 
A fairy train appear'd in order bright : 
Adown the glitt'riug stream they featly danced : 
Bright to the moon their various dresses 

glanced : 
They footed o'er the wat'ry glass so neat, 
The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet : 
While arts of Minstrelsy among them rung. 
And soul-ennobling bards heroic ditties sung. 
O had M^Lauchlin,* thairm-inspiring sage. 
Been there to hear this heavenly band engage, 
When thro' his dear Strathspeys they bore 

with Highland rage ; 
Or when they struck old Scotia's melting airs. 
The lover's raptured joys or bleeding cares ; 
How would his Highland lug been nobl'^r fir'd, 
And even his matchless hand with finer touch 

inspir'd ! 



* A well known performer of Scottish music on the 
violin. 



POEMS. 



13 



No guess could tell what instrument appearM, 
But all the soul of IMusic's self was heard ; 
Harmonious concert rung in every part, 
Wliile simple melody pour'd moving on the 

heart. 
The Genius of the stream in front appears, 
A venerable chief advanced in years ; 
His hoary head with water-lilies crowu'd. 
His manly leg with garter tangle bound. 
Next came the loveliest pair in all the ring, 
Sweet Female Beauty hand in hajid with 

Spring ; 
Then, crown'd with flow'ry hay, came Rural 

Joy, 
And Summer, with his fervid-beaming eye : 
AD-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn, 
Led yellow Autumn wreath'd with nodding 

com ; 
Then Winter's time-bleached locks did hoary 

show. 
By Hospitality with cloudless brow ; 
Next follow'd Courage with his martial stride, 
From where the Feal \vild-woody coverts hide ; 
Benevolence, with mild benignant air, 
A female form, came from the tow'rs of Stair: 
Learning and Worth in equal measures trode 
From simple Catrine, their long-lov'd abode : 
Last, white-rob'd Peace, crown'd with a hazel 

wreath, 
To rustic Agriculture did bequeath 
The broken iron instruments of death : 
At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their kijad- 

ling wrath. 



THE ORDINATION. 



For sense they little owe to Frugal Hcav'n — 
To please the Mob they hide the little giv'n. 



Kilmarnock Wabsters, fiflge an' claw, 

An' pour your creeshie nations ; 
An' ye wha leather rax an' draw. 

Of a' denominations. 
Swith to the Laigh Kirk, ane an' a', 

An' there tak up your stations ; 
Then aff to Segbies in a raw, 

An' pour divine libations 

For joy this day. 

IL 

Curst Common- sense, that imp o' hell. 
Cam in wi' INIaggie Lauder ;* 

Bat O aft made her yell. 

An' R sair misca'd her ; 

This day, M' takes the flail, 

An* he's the boy will bland her ! 



* Alluding to a scofTinp; balbd which was made on 
the admission of the late Reverend and worthy Mr- L. 
to the Laigh Kirk, 



He'U clap a shangan on her tail, 
An' set the baii'ns to daud hei" 

Wi' dirt this day. 

HL 

Mak haste an' turn king David owre, 

An' lilt wi' holy clangor ; 
O' double verse come gie us four. 

An' skirl up the Bangor : 
This day the Kirk kicks up a stoure, 

Nae niair the knaves shall wrang her, 
For heresy is in her power, 

And gloriously she'll whang her 

Wi' pith this day. 

IV. 

Come let a proper text be read, 

An' touch it aflf wi' vigour, 
How graceless Ham * leugh at his Dad, 

Which made Canaan a niger ; 
Or Phineas f drove the murdering blade, 

Wi' whore-abhorring rigour ; 
Oi' Zipporah, \ the scaulding jade, 

Was like a bluidy tiger 

r the ixin that day. 

V. 

There, try his mettle on the creed, 

An' bind him down wi' caution, 
That Stipend is a carnal weed. 

He taks but for the fashion ; 
An' gie him o'er the flock to feed. 

An' punish each transgression ; 
Especial, rams that cross the breed, 

Gie them sufficient threshin', 

Spare them nae day. 

VL 

Now auld Kilmarnock, cock thy tail. 

An' toss thy horns fu' canty ; 
Nae mair thou'lt rowt out-owre the dale 

Because thy pasture's scanty ; 
For lapfu's large o' gospel kail 

Shall fill thy crib in plenty. 
An' runts o' grace, the pick and wale, 

No gi'en by way o' dainty. 

But ilka day. 

VIL 

Nae mair by BabeVs streams we'll weep, 

To think upon our Zioti ; 
An' hing our fiddles up to sleep. 

Like baby- clouts a-drj-in' ; 
Come, screw the pegs with tunefu' cheep. 

An' owre the thau-ms be tryin' ; 
Oh, rare ! to see our elbucks wheep, 

An' a like lamb-tails flyin' 

Fu' fast this day. 

VIIL 

Lang Patronage, wi' rod o' aim. 
Has shored the Kirk's undoin'. 



* Genesis, ch. ix. ver. 22. 
t Numbers, ch. xxv. ver. 8. 
% Exodus, ch. iv. ver. 25. 



u 



BURNS' WORKS. 



As lately Fenwick, sair forfairn, 

Has proven to its ruin : 
Our Patron, honest man ! Glencairn, 

He saw mischief was brewin' ; 
An' like a godly elect bairn, 

He's wal'd us out a true ane, 

An' sound this day. 



NowR- 



IX. 

harangue nae mair, 



But steek your gab for ever 
Or try the wicked town of Ayr, 

For there they'll think you clever ; 
Or, nae reflection on your lear, 

Ye may commence a shaver ; 
Or to the Netherton repair, 

An' turn a carper weaver 

Afi" hand this day. 



M- 



and you were just a match, 



We never had sic twa drones 
Auld Hornie did the Laigh Kirk watch, 

Just like a winkin' baudrons : 
An' aye he catch'd the tither wretch. 

To fry them in his caudrons : 
But now his honour maun detach, 

Wi' a' his brimstone squadrons, 

Fast, fast, this day. 

XL 

See, see auld Orthodoxy's faes, 

She's swingein' through the city ; 
Hark how the nine-tail'd cat she plays ! 

I vow it's unco pi-etty : 
There, Learning, wi' his Greekish face, 

Grunts out some Latin ditty : 
An' Common-sense is gaun, she says, 

To mak to Jamie JSeattie 

Her plaint this day. 

xn. 

But there's Morality himsel', 

Embracing a' opinions ; 
Hear, how he gies the tither yell, 

Between his twa companions ; 
See, how she peels the skin an' fell, 

As ane were peelin' onions ! 
Now there — they're packed aff to hell, 

An' banish'd our dominions. 

Henceforth this day. 

xni. 

O happy day ! rejoice, rejoice ! 

Come bouse about the porter ! 
Morality's demure decoys 

Shall here nae mair find quarter : 
M' , R y are the boys, 

That heresy can torture : 
They'll gie her on a rape a hoyse. 

An' cowe her measure shorter 

By the head some day. 

XIV. 

Come bring the tither mutchkin in. 
An* here's for a conclusion, 



To every New LigTit * mother's son. 
From this time forth, Confusion : 

If mair they deave us wi' their din, 
Or Patronage intrusion. 

We'll light a spunk, an' ev'ry skin, 
We'll rin them aff in fusion 

Like oil, some day. 



THE CALF. 

TO THE REV. MR. — 

On his Text, Malachi, ch. iv. ver. 2. " And they 
shall go forth, and grow up, like calves of the stall.' 

Right Sir ! your text I'll prove it true, 

Though Heretics may laugh ; 
For instance ; there's yoursel' just now, 

God knows, an unco Calf! 

An' should some Patron be so kind, 

As bless you wi' a kirk, 
I doubt nae, Sir, but then we'll find, 

Ye' re still as great a Stirk, 

But, if the Lover's raptur'd hour 

Shall ever be your lot, 
Forbid it, every heavenly Power, 

You e'er should be a Stot ! 

Tho', when some kind, connubial Dear, 

Your but-and-ben adorns. 
The like has been that you may wear 

A noble head of horns. 

And in your lug, most reverend James, 

To hear you roar and rowte, 
Few men o' sense will doubt your claims 

To rank amang the nowte. 

And when ye're number'd wi' the dead, 

Below a grassy hillock, 
Wi' justice they may mark your head — 

' Here lies a famous Bullock /' 



ADDRESS TO THE DEIL. 



O Prince ! O Chief of many throned Power's, 
That led th' embattled Seraphim to war. — Milton,. 



O THOU ! whatever title suit thee, 

Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie, 
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie, 

Clos'd under hatches, 
Spairges about the brunstane cootie, 

To scaud poor wretches ! 

Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee. 
An' let poor damned bodies be ; 



* New Light is a cant phrase in the West of Scot, 
land, for those religious opinions which Dr. Taylor of 
Norwich has defended so strenuously. 



POEMS. 



15 



I'm sure sma* pleasure it can gie. 

E'en to a deil, 
To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me, 

An' hear us squeel ! 

Great is thy po\v*r, an' great thy fame ; 
Far kend and noted is thy name ; 
An' tho' yon lowin' heugh's thy hame, 

Thou travels far ; 
An' faith ! thou's neither lag nor lame, 

Nor blate nor scaur. 

Whyles, ranging like a roarln' lion, 
For prey, a' holes and corners tryin' ; 
Whyles on the strong-wing'd tempest flyin*, 

Tirling the kirks ; 
Whyles, in the human bosom pryin', 

Unseen thou lurks. 

I've heard my reverend Grannie say, 
In lanely glens you like to stray ; 
Or where auld ruin'd castles gray, 

Nod to the moon, 
Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way, 
Wi' eldritch croon. 

When twilight did my Grannie summon, 
To say her prayers, douce honest woman ! 
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin' ! 

Wi' eerie drone ; 
Or, rustlin', thro' the boortries comin*, 

Wi' heavy groan. 

Ae dreary, windy, winter night. 
The stars shot down wi' sklentin' light, 
"W^' you, mysel', I gat a fright, 

Ayont the lough j 
Ye, like a rash-bush, stood in sight, 

Wi' waving sough. 

The cudgel in my nieve did shake. 
Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake. 
When wi' an eldritch stour, quaick — quaick— 

Amang the springs, 
Awa ye squatter'd, like a drake. 

On whistUng wings. 

Let Warlocks grim, an' vvither'd hags, 
Tell how wi* you on ragweed nags. 
They skim the muirs, and dizzy crags, 

Wi' wicked speed ; 
And in kirk-yards renew their leagues, 

Owre hovvkit dead. 

Thence countra wives, wi' toil an' pain, 
May plunge an' plunge the kirn in vain ; 
For, oh ! the yellow treasure's ta'en 

By witching skill ; 
An' dawtit, twal-pint Hawkie's gane 

As yell's the Bill. 

Thence mystic knots mak great abuse, 
On young Guidmen, fond, keen, an' crouse ; 
When the best wark-lume i' the house, 
By cantrip wit, 



Is instant made no worth a louse, 
Just at the bit. 

When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord, 
An' float thejinglin' icy-boord. 
Then Water-kelpies haunt the foord. 

By your direction, 
An' nighted Trav'llers are allured 

To their destruction. 

An' aft your moss- traversing Spunkies 
Decoy the wight that late and drunk is ; 
The bleeziu', curst, mischievous monkeys 

Delude his eyes. 
Till in some miry slough he sunk is. 

Ne'er mair to rise. 

When Masons^ mystic word an' grip. 
In storms an' tempests raise you up. 
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop, 

Or, strange to tell ! 
The youngest Brother ye wad whip 

Aff straught to hell ! 

Lang syne, in Eden^s bonnie yard. 
When youthfu' lovers first were pair'd. 
An' all the soul of love they shar'd. 

The raptur'd hour. 
Sweet on the fragrant flowery swaird 
In shady bower : 

Then you, ye auld, snic-drawing dog ! 
Ye came to Paradise incog. 
An' played on man a cursed brogue, 

(Black be your fa' !) 
Au' gied the infant world a shog, 

'Maist ruined a'. 

D'ye mind that day, when in a bizz, 
Wi' reekit duds, and reestit gizz. 
Ye did present your smoutie phiz 

'Mang better folk, 
An' sklented on the man of Uz 

Your spitefu' joke ? 

An' how ye gat him i' your thrall, 
An' brak him out o' house an' hall. 
While scabs and blotches did him gall, 

Wi' bitter claw, 
An' lowsed his ill tongued wicked Scawl, 

Was warst ava ? 

But a' your doings to rehearse. 
Your wily snares an' fechtin' fierce, 
Sin' that day Michael * did you pierce, 

Down to this time, 
Wad ding a Lallan tongue, or Erse, 

In prose or rhyme. 

An' now, auld Cloots, I ken ye're thlukin' 
A certain Bardie's rantin', diinkin', 
Some luckless hour will send him linkin'. 
To your black pit ; 



Vide Milton, book vi. 



16 



BURNS' WORKS. 



But, faith ! he'll turn a corner, jiukin', 
And cheat you yet. 

But, fare ye weel, auld Nickie-hen ! 
O wad ye tak a thought and men' ! J 
Ye aiblins might — I diuna ken — 

Still hae a stake — 
I'm wae to think upon yon den, 

Even for your sake ! 



THE 

DEATH AND DYING WORDS 

OF 

POOR MAILIE, 

THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE. 

AN UNCO MOURNFU TALE. 

As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither, 
Were ae day nibbling on the tether, 
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch. 
An' owre she warsled in the ditch ; 
There, gi-oaning, dying, she did lie. 
When Hughoc* he came doytin by. 

Wi' glowrin' cen, and lifted ban's, 
Poor Hughoc like a statue Stan's : 
He saw her days were near-hand ended. 
But, wae's my heart I he could na mend it ! 
He gaped wide, but naething spak ! 
At length poor Mailie silence brak. 

* O thou, whase lamentable face 
Appears to mourn my waefu' case ! 
My dying words attentive hear. 
An* bear them to my Master dear. 

* Tell him, if e'er again he keep 
As rauckle gear as buy a sheep, 
O, bid him never tie them mair 
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair ! 
But ca' them out to park or hill, 
An' let them wauder at their will : 
So may his flock increase, an' grow 
To scores o' lambs, an' packs o' woo' ! 

' Tell him, he was a master kin', 
An' aye was guid to me an' mine : 
An' now my dying charge I gie him. 
My helpless lambs I trust them wi' him. 

* O bid him save their harmless lives, 
Frae dogs, an' tods, an' butchers' knives ! 
But gie them guid cow milk their fill, 
Till they be fit to fend themsel' ; 

An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn, 
Wi' teats o' hay an' rips o' corn. 



* An' may they never learn the gaets 
Of ither vile, wanrestfu' |9efs / 

To slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal, 

At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail. 

So may they, like their great forbears, 

For mony a year come thro' the sheers : 

So wives will gie them bits o' bread, 

An' bairns greet for them when they're dead. 

* My poor toop-lamh, my son an' heir, 

bid him breed him up wi' care ! 
An' if he live to be a beast. 

To pit some havins in his breast ! 
An' warn him, what I winna name. 
To stay content wi' yowes at hame ; 
An' no to rin an' wear his cloots, 
Like ither menseless, graceless, brutes. 

' An' neist my yowie, silly thing, 
Guid keep thee frae a tether string ! 
O, may thou ne'er forgather up 
Wi' ony blastit moorland toop : 
But aye keep mind to moop an' mell 
Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel' ! 

' An' now, my bairns, wi' my last breath, 

1 lea'e my blessin' wi' you baith : 

An' when you think upo' your mither. 
Mind to be kin' to ane anither. 

' Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail 
To tell my master a' my tale ; 
An' bid him burn this cursed tether. 
An', for thy pains, thou'se get my blether.' 

This said, poor Mailie turn'd her head. 
And closed her een amang the dead. 



* A neebor herd-callan. 



POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY. 

Lament in rhyme, lament in prose, 
Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose ; 
Our bardie's fate is at a close. 

Past a' remead ; 
The last sad cape-stane o' his woes ; . , ■ 

Poor Mailie' s dead !' 

It's no the loss o' warl's gear. 
That could sae bitter draw the tear, 
Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear 

The mourning weed : 
He's lost a friend and neebor dear. 
In Mailie dead. 

J Thro' a' the town she trotted by him ; 
A lang half-mile she could descry him ; 
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him. 
She ran wi' speed ; 
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him. 
Than Mailie dead. 

I wat she was a sheep o' sense. 
An' could behave hersel' wi' mense : 
I'll say't, she never brak a fence, 

Thro' thievish greed. 



POEMS. 



Our bardie, lanely, keeps the spence 

Sia' Maine's dead. 

Or, if he wanders up the howe, 
Her living image in her yowe, 
Comes bleating to him owre the knowe, 

For bits o' bread ; 
An' down the briny pearls rowe 

For Mailie dead. 

She was nae get o' moorland tips, 
Wi' tawted ket, an' hairy hips: 
For her forbears were brought in ships 

Frae yont the Tweed i 
A boomer Jleesh ne'er cross'd the clips 

Than Mailie dead. 

Wae worth the man wha first did shape 
That vile, wanchancie thing — a rape ! 
It maks guid fellows girn an' gape, 

Wi' chokin' dread j 
An' Jiohin's bonnet wave wi' crape, 

For Mailie dead. 

O, a* ye bards on bonnie D0071 ! 
An' wha on Ayr your chaunters tune ! 
Come, join the melancholious croon 

O' Robin's reed ! 
His heart will never get aboon 

His Mailie dead. 



TO J. S- 



Friendship ! mysterious cement of the soul ! 
Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society ! 
I owe thee much ! Blair. 



Dkak S , the sleest, paukie thief, 

Tiiat e'er attempted stealth or rief, 
Ye surely hae some warlock-breef 

Owre human hearts j 
For ne'er a bosom yet was prief 

Against your arts. 

For me, I swear by sun an' moon, 
And every star that blinks aboon, 
Ye've cost me twenty pair 0' shoon, 

Just gaun to see you : 
And every ither pair that's done, 

Mair taen I'm wi' you. 

That auld capricious carlin, Nature, 
To mak amends for scrimpit stature, 
She's turn'd you aff, a human creature 
On her first plan. 
And in her freaks, on every feature, 

She's wrote, tJie Man, 

Just now I've taen the fit o' rhyme. 
My barmie noddle's working prime, 
My fancy yerkit up sublime 

Wi' hasty summon j 



iae y< 



a leisure moment's time 

To hear what's couiin' 



Some rhyme a neebor's name to lash ; 
Some rhyme (vaia thought \) for needfu' caslr 
Some rhyme to court the countra clash, 

An' raise a din j 
For me an aim I never fash ; 

I rhyme for fun. 

The star that rules my luckless lot, 
Has fated me the russet coat, 
An' damned my fortune to the groat ; 

But in rcquit. 
Has bless'd me wi' a random shot 

O' countra wit. 

This while my notion's taen a sklent. 
To try my fate in guid black prent ; 
But still the mair I'm that way bent. 

Something cries ' Hoolie •, 
I red you, honest man, tak tent ! 

Ye'll shaw your folly. 

• There's ither poets, much your betters. 
Far seen in Greek, deep men 0' letters, 
Hae thought they had ensured their debtors. 

A' future ages ; 
Now moths deform in shapeless tetters, 

Their unknown pages. 

Then fareweel hopes o' laurel-boughs, 
To garland my poetic brows ! 
Henceforth I'll rove where busy ploughs 

Are whistling thrang, 
An teach the lanely heights an' howes 

My rustic sang. 

I'll wander on, with tentless heed 
How never-halting moments speed, 
TUl fate shall snap the brittle thread ; 

Then, all uuluiown, 
I'll lay me with th' inglorious dead. 

Forgot and gone ! 

But why o' death begin a tale ? 
Just now we're living, sound an' hale. 
Then top and maintop crowd the sail, 

Heave care o'er side ' 
And large, before enjoyment's gale. 

Let's tak' the tide. 

This life, sae far's I understand. 
Is a' enchanted fairy land. 
Where pleasure is the magic wand, 

That, wielded right, 
Maks hours like minutes, hand, in hand. 
Dance by fu' light. 

The magic-wand then let us wield ; 
For ance that five-an'- forty's speel'd, 
See crazy, weary, joyless eild, 

Wi' wrinkled face, 
Comes hostin', hirplin', owre the field, 

Wi' creepin' pace. 



18 



BURNS' WORKS. 



When ance lifes day draws near the gloamin'; 
Then fareweel vacant careless roamin' ; 
An' fareweel clieerfu' tankards foamin', 

An' social noise ; 
An' fareweel dear deluding woman, 

The joy of joys! 

O Life ! how pleasant in thy morning, 
Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning ! 
Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning, 

We frisk away, 
Like school-boys, at the expected warning, 

To joy and play. 

"We wander there, we wander here, 
We eye the rose upon the brier. 
Unmindful that the thorn is near, 

Amang the leaves : 
And though the puny wound appear, 

Short while it grieves. 

Some, lucky, find a flowery spat, 
For which they never toiled nor swat, 
They drink the sweet and eat the fat. 

But care or pain ; 
And haply eye the barren hut 

With high disdain. 

With steady aim, some Fortune chase ; 
Keen hope does every sinew brace : 
Thro' fair, thro' foul, they urge the race. 

An seize the prey : 
Then cannie, in some cozie place. 

They close the day. 

An' others, like your humble servan', 
Poor wights ! nae rales nor roads observin' ; 
To right or left, eternal swervin'. 

They zig-zag on ; 
Till curst wi' age, obscure an' starvin'. 

They aften groan. 

Alas ! what bitter toil an' straining— 
But truce with peevish poor complaining ! 
Is Fortune's fickle Luna waning ? 



E'en let h'»r 



gang 



Beneath what light she li^s remaining. 
Let's sing our sang. 

My pen I here fling to the door. 
And kneel, ' Ye pow'rs !' and warm implore, 
' Tho' I should wander terra o'er, 

Id all her climes. 
Grant me but this, I ask no more. 

Aye rowth o' rhymes. 

' Gie dreeping roasts to countra laii'ds. 
Till icicles hing frae their beards : 
Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards. 

An' maids of honour j 
An' yill an' whisky gie to cairds. 

Until they sconner. 

' A title, Dempster merits it ; 
A garter gie to Willie Pitt ; 



Gie wealth to some be-ledger'd clt, 
In cent, per cent 

But give me real, sterling wit, 

An' I'm content. 

* While ye are pleased to keep me has'v 
I'll sit down o'er my scanty meal, 
Be't water-hrose or muslin-kail, 

Wi' cheerfu' face, 
As lang's the muses dinna fail 

To say the grace.' 

An anxious e'e I never throws 
Behint my lug, or by my nose ; 
I jouk beneath misfortune's blows. 

As weel's I may ; 
Sworn foe to sorrow, care, an' prose, 
I rhyme away. 

O ye douce folk, that live by rule, 
Grave, tideless-blooded, calm and cool, 
Compar'd wi' you — O fool ! fool ! fool ! 
How much unlike ! 
Your hearts are just a standing pool. 

Your lives, a dyke ! 

Nae hair-braln'd sentimental traces 
In your unletter'd nameless faces ; 
In arioso triUs and graces 

Ye never stray, 
But gravissimo, solemn basses 

Ye hum away. 

Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye're wise, 
Nae ferly tho' ye do despise 
The hairupi-scairum, ram-stam boys, 

The rattlin' squad : 
I see you upward cast your eyes — __ 

— Ye ken the road.— 

Whilst I — but I shall baud me there— 
Wi' you I'll scarce gang ony where-— > 
Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair. 

But quat my sang. 
Content wi' you to mak a pair, 

Whare'er I gang. 



A DREAM. 



Thoughts, words, and deeds, the statute blames with 

reason ; 
But surely dreams were ne'er indicted treason. 



[On reading, in the public papers, the Laureate's Ode, 
with the other parade of June 4, 1786, the author 
was no sooner dropt asleep, than Tie imagined him- 
self transported to the birth-day levee ; and in his 
dreaming fancy, made the following Address.'] 

I. 

Guie-mornin' to your Majesty ! 

JNIay heaven augment your blisses, 
On every now hirth^day ye see, 

A humble poet wishes ! 
My hardship here, at your levee, 

On sic a day as this is. 



POEMS. 



19 



Is sure an uncouth sight to see, 
Amang the birth-day dresses 

Sae fine this day. 



I see ye're complimented thrang, 

By mony a lord an' lady, 
' God save the King !' 's a cuckoo sang 



vjuu save nic iving ; a a t;L 

That's iiuco easy said aye ; 



1 iia.1. s uucu ccisy naiu aye ; 

The poets, too, a venal gang, 

Wi' rhymes weel turn'd an' ready, 
Wad gar you trow ye ne'er 
steady, 



Wi' rhymes weel tui 
'^ad gar you trow ye ne'er do wrang 
But aye unerring steady. 

On sic a day. 

III. 

For me ! before a monarch's face, 

Ev'n there I winna flatter ; 
For neither pension, post, nor place, 

Am I your humble debtor : 
So nae reflection on i/our grace, 

Your kingship to bespatter ; 
There's monie waur been o' the race, 

An' aiblins ane been better 

Than you this day. 

IV. 
*Tis very true, my sov'reign king. 

My skill may weel be doubted : 
But facts are chiels that winna ding. 

An' downa be disputed : 
Your royal nest, beneath your wing, 

Is e'en right reft an' clouted. 
An' now the third part o' the string. 

An' less, will gang about it 

Than did ae day. 

V. 

Far be't frae me that I aspire 

To blame your legislation, 
Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire, 

To rule this miglity nation ! 
But, faith i I muckle doubt, my Sire, 

Ye've t-usted ministration 
To chaps, wha, in a barn or byre, 

Wad better fili'd their station 

Than courts yon day. 

VI. 

An' now ye've gien auld Britain peace, 

Her broken shins to piaister ; 
Your sair taxation does her fleece. 

Till she has scarce a tester ; 
For me, thank God, my life's a lease, 

Nae bargain wearing faster, 
Or, faith ! I foar, that wi' the geese, 

I shortly boost to pasture 

r the craft some day. 

' VII. 

I'm no mistrusting Willie Pitt, 

When taxes he enlarges, 
(An' Wills a true guid fallow's get, 

A name not envy spairges), 
That he intends to pay your debt, 

An' lessen a' your charges ; , 



But, God-sake ! let nae saving fit 
Abridge your bonnie barges 

An' boats this day. 

VIII. 

Adieu, my Liege ! may freedom geek 

Beneath your high protection ; 
An' may ye rax Corruption's neck, 

An' gie her for dissection ! 
But since I'm here, I'll no neglect. 

In loyal, true afi'ection, 
To pay your Queen, \vith due respect, 

My fealty an' subjection 

This great birth-day. 

IX. 

Hail, Majesty ! Most Excellent ! 

While nobles strive to please ye. 
Will ye accept a compliment 

A simple poet gies ye ? 
T^hae bonnie bairntime, Heav'n has lent. 

Still higher may they heeze ye, 
In bliss, till fate some day is sent, 

For ever to release ye 

Frae care that day. 

X. 

For you, young potentate o' Wales, 

I tell your Highness fairly, 
Down Pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails, 

I'm tauld ye're driving rarely ; 
But some day ye may gnaw your nails, 

An' curse your folly sairly. 
That e'er ye brak Diana's pales, 

Or rattled dice wi' Charlie, 

By night or day. 

XL 

Yet aft a ragged cozt'te''s been known 

To inak a noble aiver : 
So, ye may doucely fill a throne, 

For a' their clish-ma-claver : 
There, him'* at Agincourt wha shone, 

Few better were or braver ; 
An' yet wi' funny queer Sir ,Tohn,-\ 

He was an unco shaver 

For monie a day 

XII. 

For you, right rev rend Osnahrug, 

Naue sets the laivn-slceve sweeter, 
Altho' a ribbon at your lug 

Wad been a dress completer : 
As ye disown yon paughty dog 

That bears the keys of Peter, 
Then, swith ! an' get a wife to hug. 

Or, trouth, ye'll stain the mitre 

Some luckless day. 

XIIL 

Young royal Tarry Breeks, I learn, 
Ye've lately come athwart her ; 



♦ King Henry V. 

t Sir John Falstaft", vide Shakespeare. 



20 



BURNS* WORKS. 



A gloaious galley* stem an stern, 
Weel rigg'd for Venus' barter ; 

But first hang out, that she'll discern 
Your hymeneal charter, 

Then heave aboard your grapple airn. 
An' large upo' her quarter, 

Come full that day. 

XIV. 

Ye, lastly, bonnie blossoms a', 

Ye royal lasses dainty, 
Heav'n mak you guid as weel as braw, 

An' gie you lads a-plenty : 
But sneer nae British, hoys awa', 

For kings are unco scant aye ; 
An' German gentles are but sma\ 

They're better just than want aye 
On onie day. 

XV. 

God bless you a' ! consider now, 

Ye're unco muckle dautet ; 
But, ere the course o' life be thro'. 

It may be bitter sautet ; 
An' I h le seen their cnggie fou, 

Tliat yet hae tarrow't at it ; 
But or the day was done, I trow, 

The laggen they hae clautet 

Fu' clean that dav. 



THE VISION. 

DUAK FIRST. I 

The sun had closed the winter day. 
The curlers quat their roaring play, 
An' hunger'd maukin ta'en her way 

To kail-yards green, 
While faithless snaws ilk step betray 

Wliare she has been. 

The thresher's weary Jiingin-tree 
The lee-lang day had tired me : 
And whan the day had closed his e'e. 

Far i' the west, 
Ben i' the spence, right pensiveUe, 
I gaed to rest. 

There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek, 
I sat and ey'd the spewing reek. 
That hll'd wi' hoast-provoking smeek. 

The auld clay biggin' ; 
An' heard the restless rattons squeak 
About the riggin'. 

All in this raottie, misty clime, 
I backward mus'd on wasted time. 
How I had spent my youthfu' prime. 

An' done nae-thing. 



* Alluding to the newspaper account of a certain 
royal sailor's amour. 

f Duan, a term of Ossian's for the difFerent divisions 
of a digressive poem. See his Cath-Loda, vol. ii. of 
M'Pherson's translation. 



But stringin* blethers up in rhyme 

For fools to sing. 

Had I to guid advice but harkit, 
I might, by this, hae led a market. 
Or strutted in a bank and clarkit 

My cash account : 
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit, 

Is a' th' amount. 

I started, mutt'ring, blockhead ! coof ! 
And heav'd on high my waukit loof, 
To swear by a' yon starry roof. 

Or some rash aith, 
That I, henceforth, would be rhyme-proof 

Till my last breath— 

When click ! the string the sneck did draw ; 
An' jee ! the door gaed to the wa' ; 
An' by my ingle-lowe I saw, 

Now bleezin bright, 
A tight outlandish Hizzie braw. 

Come full in sight. 

Ye need na doubt, I held my whisht 
The infant aith half-form'd was crush't ; 
I glowr'd as eerie's I'd been dusht 

In some wild glen ; 
When sweet, like modest worth, she blush't. 
And stepped ben. 

Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs. 
Were twisted gracefu' round her brows ; 
I took her for some Scottish 3Iuse, 

By that same token ; 
An' come to stop those reckless vows. 

Would soon been broken. 

A * hair-brain'd, sentimental trace' 
Was strongly marked in her face ; 
A wildly-witty, rustic grace 

Shone full upon her ; 
Her eye, ev'n turn'd on empty space, 

Beam'd keen with honour. 

Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen, 
Till half a leg was scrimply seen ; 
And such a leg ! my bonnie Jean 

Could only pear it ; 
Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean, 

Nane else cam near it. 

Her mantle large, of greenish hue, 
My gazing wonder chiefly drew ; 
Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw 

A lustre grand ; 
And seem'd to my astonish'd view, 

A well known land. 

Here, rivers in the sea were lost : 
There, mountains to the skies were tost : 
Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast, 
With surging foam ; 
There, distant shone Art's lofty boast. 
The lordly dome. 



POEMS. 



21 



Here Doon pour'd down his far-fetch'd floods ; 
There, well-fed Incine stately thuds : 
A\dd hermit Ayr staw thro' his woods, 

On to the shore ; 
And many a lesser torrent scuds, 

With seeming roar. 

T.ow, in a sandy valley spread, 
An ancient borough rear'd her head ; 
Still, as in Scottish story read, 

She boasts a race, 
To every nobler virtue bred, 

And polish'd grace. 

By stately tow'r or palace fair, 
Or ruins pendent in the air, 
Bold stems of heroes, here and there, 

I could discern ; 
Some seem'd to muse, some seem'd to dare, 

With feature stern. 

]My heart did glowing transport feel, 
To see a race * heroic wheel, 
And brandish round the deep-dy'd steel 

In sturdy blows ; 
While back-recoiling seem'd to reel 

Their suthron foes. 

His Country's SAViouR,f mark him well 
Bold Richardtons ^ heroic swell ; 
The chief on Sark § who glorious fell, 

In high command ; 
And he whom ruthless fates expel 

His native land. 

There, where a sceptred Pictish shade || 
Stalk'd round his ashes lowly laid, 
I mark'd a martial race pourtray'd 

In colours strong ; 
Bold, soldier-featur'd, undismay'd 

They strode along. 

Thro' many a wild, romantic grove,^ 
Near many a hermit-fancy'd cove, 
(Fit haunts for friendship or for love 

In musing mood), 
An aged Judge, I saw him rove, 

Dispensing good. 

With deep-struck reverential awe,** 
The learned sire and so7i I saw, 
To Nature's God and Nature's law 

They gave their lore. 



* The Wallaces. + William Wallace. 

+ Adam Wallace, of Richardton, cousin to the im- 
mortal preserver of Scottish independence. 

§ Wallace, Laird of Craigie, who was second in com- 
mand, under Douglas Earl of Ormond, at the famous 
battle on the banks of Sark, fought ajuw 14 18, That 
glorious victory was principally owing to the judicious 
conduct and intrepid valour of the gallant Laird of 
Craigie, who died of his wounds after the action. 

II Coilus, King of the Picts, from whom the district 
of Kyle is said to take its name, lies buried, as tradi- 
tion says, near the family-seat of the Montgomeries of 
Coilsfield, where his burial-place is still shown. 

II Barskimming, the seat of the late Lord Justice- 
Clerk. 

** Catrine, the seat of the late Doctor, and present 
Professor Stewart. 



This, all its source and end to draw, 
That, to adore. 

Sri/don's brave ward * I well could spy, 
Beneath old Scotia's smiling eye ; 
Who call'd on Fame, low standing by. 

To hand him on, 
Where many a patriot-name on high. 

And hero shone. 

DUAN SECONn. 

With musing-deep, astonish 'd stare, 
I view'd the heav'nly-seeming fair ; 
A whisp'ring throb did witness bear, 

Of kindred sweet, 
When with an elder sister's air 

She did me greet. 

* All hail ! my own inspired bard I 
In me thy native muse regard ; 

Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard, 

Thus poorly low, 

I come to give thee such reward 

As we bestow. 

* Know, the great genius of this land 
Has many a light, aerial band. 

Who, all beneath his high command. 
Harmoniously, 

As arts or arms they understand, * 
Their labours ply. 

' They Scotia's race among them share ; 
Some fire the soldier on to dare ; 
Some rouse the patriot up to bare 

Corruption's heart : 
Some teach the bard, a darling care. 
The tuneful art. 

< 'Mong swelling floods of reeking gore. 
They, ardent, kindling spirits pour j 
Or, 'mid the venal senate's roar. 

They, sightless, stand. 
To mend the honest patriot-lore. 

And grace the hand. 

* And when the bard, or hoary sage. 
Charm or instruct the future age. 
They bind tJie wild poetic rage 

In energy. 
Or point the inconclusive page 

Full on the eye. 

' Hence Fullarton, the brave and young ; 
Hence Dempster's zeal-inspired tongue ; 
Hence sweet harmonious Seattie sung 

His " Rlinstrel lays ;" 
Or tore, with noble ardour stung. 

The sceptic's bays. 

' To lower orders are assign *d 
The humbler ranks of human-kind. 



* Colonel Fullarton. 



22 



BURNS' WORKS. 



The rustic Bard, the lab'ring Hind, 

The Artisan ; 
All choose, as various they're inclin'd, 

The various man. 

* When yellow waves the heavy grain, 
The threat'nLag storm some strongly rein ; 
Some teach to meliorate the plain, 

With tillage skill ; 
And some instruct the shepherd-train, ■ 
Blithe o'er the hill. 

' Some hint the lover's harmless wile ; 
Some grace the maiden's artless smile ; 
Some soothe the lab'rer's weary toil, 

For humble gains, 
And make his cottage scenes beguile 

His cares and pains. 

' Some boimded to a district-space, 
Explore at large man's infant race, 
To mark the embryotic trace 

Of rustic Bard ; 
And careful note each op'ning grace, 

A guide and guard. 

' Of these am I — Coila my name ; 
And this district as mine I claim, 
Where once the Campbells, chiefs of fame, 

Held ruling pow'r : 
I mark'd thy embryo tuneful flame. 

Thy natal hour. 

* With future hope, I oft would gaze, 
Fond on thy little early ways. 
Thy rudely caroU'd, chiming phrase, 

In uncouth rhymes, 
Fired at the simple, artless lays 

Of other times. 

' I saw thee seek the sounding shore, 
Delighted with the dashing roar ; 
Or when the north his fleecy store 

Drove thro' the sky, 
I saw grim Nature's visage hoar 

Struck thy young eye. 

* Or when the deep-green mantled earth 
Warm cherish'd ev'ry flow'ret's birth, 
And joy and music pouring forth 

In ev'ry grove, 
I saw thee eye the general mirth 

With boundless love. 

* When ripen'd fields, and azure skies, 
Call'd forth the reaper's rustling noise, 

I saw thee leave their ev'ning joys. 

And lonely stalk, 

To vent thy bosom's swelling rise 

In pensive walk, 

* When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong, 
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along. 

Those accents, grateful to thy tongue, 
Th' adored Name, 



I taught thee how to pour in song, 

To soothe thy flame. 

* I saw thy pulse's maddening play, 
Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way, 
Misled by Fancy's meteor ray. 

By Passion driven j 
But yet the light that led astray 

Was light from heaven. 

' I taught thy manners-painting strains. 
The loves, the ways of simple swains 
TiU now, o'er all ray wide domains 

Thy fame extends ; 
And some, the pride of Coila s plains. 

Become thy friends. 

' Thou canst not learn, nor can I show, 
To paint with Thomson's landscape glow ; 
Or wake the bosom-melting throe, 

With Shenstone^s art ; 
Or pour, with Grat/, the moving flow 
Warm on the heart. 

* Yet all beneath th' unrivall'd rose. 
The lowly daisy sweetly blows : 

Tho' large the forest's monarch throws 
His army shade. 

Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows, 
Adown the glade. 

* Then never murmur nor repine ; 
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine ; 
And trust me, not PotosVs mine, 

Nor king's regard. 
Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine, 
A rustic Bard. 

' To give my counsels all in one. 
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan ; 
Preserve the dignity of Man, 

With soul erect ; 
And trust the Universal plan 

Will all protect. 

* And wear thou this,^ — she solemn sai( 
And bound the Holli/ round ray head ; 
The polish'd leaves, and berries red, 

Did rustling play ; 
And, like a passing thought, she fled 
In hght away. 



ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID 



RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS. 



My son, these maxims make a nile, 
And lump them aye thegither ; 

The Ili^id Righteous is a fool, 
The Rigid JVise anither : 






POEMS. 



23 



The cleanest corn that e'er was dight 

May hae some pyles o' caff in ; 
Sae ne'er a fellow-creature slight 

For random fits o' dalfin. — 

Solomon. — Eccies. ch, vii. ver. 16. 



I. 

O YE wha are sae guid yoursel, 

Sae pious an' sae holy, 
Ye've nouglit to do but mark and tell 

Your neehour's fauts and folly ! 
Whase life is like a weel gaun mill, 

Supply'd wi' store o* water, 
The heapit happer's ebbing still, 

And still the clap plays clatter. 

II. 
Hear me, ye venerable core, 

As counsel for poor mortals. 
That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door 

For glaikit Folly's portals ; 
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes, 

Would here propone defences, 
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes, 

Their failings and mischances. 

III. 

Ye see your state wi' theirs compared, 

An' shudder at the niffer. 
But cast a moment's fair regard, 

What maks the mighty differ ? 
Discount what scant occasion gave, 

That purity ye pride in, 
An' (what's aft mair than a' the lave) 

Your better art o* hiding. 

IV. 

Think, when your castigated pulse 

Gies now and then a wallop. 
What ragings must his veins convulse. 

That still eternal gallop : 
Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail. 

Right on ye scud your sea-way ; 
But in the teeth o' baith to sail, 

It maks an unco lee-way. 



See social life and glee sit down, 

All joyous and unthinking. 
Till, quite transmogrified, they're grown 

Debauchery and drinking : 
O would they stay to calculate 

Th' eternal consequences ; 
Or your more dreaded hell to state, 

Damnation of expenses ! 

VI. 

Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames, 

Ty'd up in godly laces. 
Before ye gie poor frailty names, 

Suppose a change o' cases ; 
A dear lov'd lad, convenience snug, 

A treacherous inclination — 
But, let me whisper i' your lug. 

Ye' re aiblins nae temptation. 



VII. 

Then gently scan your brother man, 

Still gentler sister woman ; 
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang, 

To step aside is human : 
One point must still be greatly dark, 

The moving whij they do it ; 
And just as lamely can ye mark, 

How far perhaps they rue it. 

VIII. 

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly can try us, 
He knows each chord — its various tone, 

Each spring — its various bias : 
Then at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it ; 
What's done we partly may compute. 

But know not what's resisted. 



TAM SAMSON'S* ELEGY. 



An honest man's the noblest work of God.— Pope. 



Has auld K seen the Deil ! 

Or great M' 'f thrawn his heel ? 

Or R \ again grown weel 

To preach an' read ,' 
' "Na, waur than a' ! ' cries ilka chiel, 

• Tam Samson's dead ! 

K lang may grunt an' grane. 

An' sigh, an' sab, an' greet her lane, 

An* deed her bairns, man, wife, and wean. 

In mourning weed ; 
To death, she's dearly paid the kane, 

Tam Samson's dead 

The brethren of the mystic level, 
May liing their head in woefu' bevel, 
While by their nose the tears will revel. 

Like ony bead } 
Death's gien the lodge an unco devel, 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

When winter muffles up his cloak. 
And binds the mire like a rock ; 
When to the lochs the curlers flock, 

Wi' gleesome speed j 
Wha will they station at the cock ? 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

He was the king o' a' the core. 
To guard, or draw, or wick a bore. 



* When this worthy old sportsman went out last 
muirfowl season, he supposed it was to be, in Ossian's 
jihrase, ' the last of his fields !' and expressed an ar- 
dent wish to die an<l be buried in the nuiirs. On this 
hint tho author comjwscd his elegy and epitaph. 

t A certain preacher, a great favourite with the mil- 
lion, p^ide the Ordination, Stanza II. 

X Another prcadicr, an eciual favourite with the few, 
who was at tliat time ailing. For him see also the Or. 
dination. Stanza IX. 



24 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Or up the rink, like Jehu roar, 

In time o' need ; 

But now he lags on death's hog-score, 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

Now safe the stately sawmont sail, 
And trouts bedropp'd wi' crimson hail. 
And eels weel kenn'd for souple tail, 

And geds for greed, 

Since dark in death's ^s/t-cree^ we wail, 

Tam Samson dead ! 

Rejoice, ye birring paitricks a' ; 
Ye cootie moorcocks, crousely craw ; 
Ye maukins, cock your fud fu' braw, 

Withouten dread ; 
Your mortal fae is now awa', 

Tam Samson's dead ■ 

That waefu* morn be ever mourn'd, 
Saw him in shootin' graith adorn'd. 
While pointers round impatient burn'd, 

Frae couples freed ! 
But, och ! he gaed and ne'er return'd ! 

Tam Samson's dead I 

In vain auld age his body batters ; 
In vain the gout his ancles fetters ; 
In vain the burns came down like waters. 

An acre braid ! 
Now ev'ry auld wife, greetin', clatters, 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

Owre mony a weary hag he limpit. 
An' aye the tither shot he thumpit, 
Till coward death behind him jumpit, 

Wi' deadly feide ; 
Now he proclaims wi' tout o' trumpet, 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

When at his heart he felt the dagger. 
He reel'd his wonted bottle-swagger, 
But yet he drew the mortal trigger 

Wi' weel-aim'd heed ; 
* L — d, five V he cry'd, an' owre did stagger ; 
^ Tam Samson's dead ! 

Ilk lioary hunter mourn'd a brither ; 
Ilk sportsman youth bemoan'd a father ; 
Yon auld grey stane, amang the heather, 
Marks out his head, 
Whare Sums has wrote, in rhyming blether, 
Tam Samson s dead ! 

There low he lies, in lasting rest : 
Perhaps upon his mould'ring breast 
Some spitefu' muirfowl bigs her nest, 

To hatch an' breed ; 
Alas ! nae mair he'll them molest ! 

Tam Samson's dead ! 

When August winds the heather wave, 
And sportsmen wander by yon grave. 
Three ^■olley3 let his mem'ry crave 

O' pouther an' lead, 



Till Echo answer frae her cave, 

Tam Samsou*s dead ! 

Heav'n rest his saul, whare'er he be ! 
Is th' wish o' mony mae than me : 
He had twa fauts, or may be three. 

Yet what remead ? 
Ae social, honest man, want we : 

Tam Samson's dead ! 



THE EPITAPH. 

Tam Sajison's weel-worn clay here lies. 
Ye canting zealots, spare him ! 

If honest worth in heaven rise, 
Ye*ll mend or ye won near him. 



PER CONTRA. 

Go, Fame, and canter like a filly 
Thro' a' the streets an' neuks o* Killicy* 
Tell every social, honest billie. 

To cease his grievin'. 
For yet unskaithi'd by death's gleg gullie, 

Tam Samsons livin*. 



HALLOWEEN.! 

[The following poem will, by many readers, be well 
enough understood ; but for the sake of those who 
are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of 
the country where the scene is cast, notes are added, 
to give some account of the principal charms and 
spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the pea- 
santry in the West of Scotland. The passion of pry- 
ing into futurity makes a striking part of the history 
of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and 
nations; and it may be some entertainment to a 
philosophic mind, if any such should honour the 
author with a perusal, to see the remains of it a 
mong the more unenlightened in our own.] 



Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain. 
The simple pleasures of the lowly train ; 
To me more dear, congenial to my heart. 
One native charm, than all the gloss of art. 

Goldsmith. 



Upon that night, when fairies light, 
On Cassilis Downans\ dance, 

Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze, 
On sprightly coursers prance ; 

Or for Colean the route is ta'en, 
Beneath the moon's pale beams ! 



* KUlie is a phrase the country folks sometimes use 
for Kilmarnock. 

t Is thought to be a night when witches, devils, and 
other mischief-making beings, are all abroad on their 
baneful midnight errands; particularly those aerial 
people, the Fairies, are said on that night to hold a 
grand anniversary. 

:j: Certain little romantic, rocky, green hills, in the 
neighbourhood of the ancient seal of tlie Earls of Cas- 
silis. 



i'OEIviS. 



25 



There, up the cove,* to stray an' rove 
Amang the rocks and streams, 

To sport that night 

II. 

Aniang the bonnle winding banks 

Where Doon rins, wimplin', clear, 
Where Bruce f ance rul'd the martial ranks, 

An' shook his Carr'uh spear, 
Some merry, friendly, countra folks, 

Together did convene. 
To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks, 

Au' baud their Hallowtcii 

Fu' blithe that night. 

III. 

The lasses feat, an' cleanly neat, 

Mair braw than when their fine ; 
Their faces blithe, fu' sweetly kythe. 

Hearts leal, an' warm, an' kin' : 
The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs, 

Weel knotted on their garteu, 
Some unco blate, an' some wi' gabs, 

Gar lasses' hearts gang startin' 

Whyles fast at night. 

IV. 

Then tirst and foremost, thro' the kail. 

Their stochs\ maun a' be sought ance ; 
They steek their een, an' graip an' wale, 

For muckle anes and straught anes. 
Poor hav'rel Will fell aft" the drift, 

An' wander'd thro' the how-kail. 
An' pou't, for want o' better shift, 

A runt was like a sow-tail, 

Sae bow't that night. 



Then, straught or crooked, yird or naiic 

They roar an' cry a' throu'ther ; 
The vera wee things, todlin', rin 

Wi' stocks out-owre their shouther ; 
An' gif the custoc's sweet or sour, 

Wi' joctelegs they taste them ; 
Syne coziely, aboon the door, 

Wi' cannie care, they've placM them 
To lie that night. 



* A noted cavern near Colean-housc, called The 
Cove of Colean ; which, as Cassilis Downans, is famed 
in country story for being a favourite haunt for fairies. 

tThe famous family of that name, the ancestors ot 
Robert, the great deliverer of his country, were Earls 
of Carrick. 

X Ihe first ceremony of Halloween, is pulling each 
a stock, or plant of kail. They must go out, hand in 
hand, with eyes shut, and pull the 'first they meet 
with ! Its being big or little, straight, or crooked, is 
prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of 
all their spells— the husband or wife. If any jym/, or 
earth, stick to the root, that is tocher, or fortune ; and 
the taste of the custoc, that is the heart of the stem, is 
indicative of the natural temper and disposition. — 
Lastly, the stems, or, to give them their ordinary ap- 
pellation, the runts, are placed somewhere above the 
head of the (loot; ; and the C'hrisliau names of the peo- 
ple whom chance brings into the house, arc, according 
to the priority of placing the runts, the names in ques- 
tion. 



VI. 
The lasses staw frae 'mang them a' 

To pou their stalks o' com ; * 
But Rab slips out, and jinks about, 

Behint the muckle thorn : 
He grippet Nelly hard an' fast ; 

Loud skirl'd a' the lasses ; 
But her tap-pickle maist was lost, 

When kiuttlia' in the fause-house ■{• 

Wi' him that night. 

VII. 

The auld guidwife's weel-hoordet nits\ 

Arc round an' round divided. 
And monie lads and lasses' fates, 

Are there that night decided : 
Some kindle, couthy, side by side, 

An' burn thegither trimly ; 
Some start awa' wi' saucy pride, 

An' jump out-owre the chimlie 

Fu' high that night. 

VIII. 

Jean slips in twa wi' tentie e'e ; 

Wha 'twas, she wadua tell ; 
But this is Jock, an' this is me. 

She says in to hersel' : 
He bleez'd owre her, aud she owre him. 

As they wad never mair part ; 
Till fufF! he started up the luni, 

An* Jean had e'en a sair heart 

To see't that night. 

IX. 

Poor WiUie, wi' his how-kail rant. 

Was brunt wi' primsie jMallie ; 
An' Mallie, nae doubt, took the drunt. 

To be coiupar'd to Willie : 
Mall's nit lap out wi' pridefu' fling, 

An' her aiu fit it brunt it ; 
While Willie lap, and swoor hy jimj, 

'Twas just the way he wanted 

To be that night. 

X. 

Nell had the fause-house in her min'. 
She pits hersel' an' Hob in ; 

In loving bleeze they sweetly join. 
Till white in ase they're sobbin' : 

Nell's lieart was dancin' at the view, 
She whispcr'd Rob to look for't : 



* Tlioy go to the barnyard, and pull cacii, at three 
several tiiiies, a stalk of oats. If the third stalk wants 
the top-picldc, that is, the grain at the top of the stalk, 
the jiany in question will come to the marriage-bed 
any thing but a maid. 

f When the corn is in a doubtful state, by being too 
green, or wet, tlic staek-builder, by means of old tim- 
ber, i\;c. makes a large apartment in his stack, with an 
opening in the side which is fairest exposed to the 
v/iiul : this he calls a fause-house. 

X lUiriiing the nuts is a favourite charm. They name 
the lail and lass toeucli particular nut, as they lay them 
in the fire, and accordingly as they burn quietly toge- 
ther, or start from beside one another, the coiuse and 
issue of the courtship will be. 



S6 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Rob, stowllni?, prie'tl her bonnie mou, 
Fu' cozie iu the neuk for't, 

Unseen that night. 

XI. 

But Merran sat behint then* backs, 

Her thoughts on Andrew Bell ; 
She lea'es them gashin' at their cracks, 

And slips out by hersel' : 
She thro' the yard the nearest taks, 

An' to the kiln she goes then, 
An' darklins graipit for the banks, 

And in the blue che * throws then. 

Right fear't that night; 

XII. 

An' aye she win't, an' aye she swat, 

I wat she made nae jaukin ; 
Till something held within the ])at, 

Guid L — d ! but she was quakiu' ! 
But whether 'twas the Deil hinisel', 

Or whether 'twas a bauk-en, 
Or whether it was Andrew Bell, 

She did na wait on talkin' 

To spear that night. 

XIII. 

Wee Jenny to her Grannie says, 

" Will ye go wi' me, graunie ? 
I'll eat the apple -f at the <jlass, 

I gat frae uncle Johnie :" 
She fufF't her pipe wi' sic a lunt, 

In wrath she was sae vap'rin', 
She notic't na, an aizle brunt 

Her braw new worset apron 

Out thro' that night. 

XIV. 

*' Ye little skelpie-limmer's face ! 

How daur ye try sic sportin', 
As seek the foul Thief ony place, 

For him to spae your fortune : 
Nae doubt but ye may get a sir/ht f 

Great cause ye hae to fear it ; 
For monie a ane has gotten a fright, 

An' bv'd an' di'd deleeret 

On sic a nischt. 



XV. 
** Ae hairst afore the Sherra-moor, 

I mind 't as weel's yestreen, 
I was a gilpey then, I'm sure 

I was na past fyfteen : 



* Whoever would, with success, hy this spell, must 
strictly observe these directions : Steal out, all alone, 
to the kiln, and, darkling, tlirow into the jwt a clue of 
blue yarn; wind it in a new ehie oil" the old one : and, 
towards the latter end, soniethin.ij will hold tlie thread, 
demand w/</t /;rt?(t/^ ? i.e. who holds? ;ui answer will 
be returned from (he i^iln-pot, by naming the Chris- 
tian and sirname of your future spouse. 

t Take a candle, and go alone to a looking-glass ; 
cat an apple before it, and some traditions say, you 
should comb your hair all the time; the faee of your 
conjugal comi)anion, to be, will be bcui iu the t-lass, as 
if peeping over your shoulder. I 



The siuuner had been cauld au' wat, 

An' stuff was uuco green ; 
An' aye a rantin kirn we gat, 

An' just on Halloween 

It fell tlwit night, 

XVI. 

" Our stibblc-rlg was llab M'Graeu, 

A clever, sturdy fallow ; 
He's sin gat Epple Sim wi' wean. 

That liv'd iu Achmacalla : 
He gat hemp-seedy* I mind it wcel. 

An' he made unco light o't ; 
But mony a day was hy himseV, 

He was sae sairly frighted 

That vera night.' 

XVII. 

Than up gat fechtin Jamie Fleck, 

An' he swoor by his conscience. 
That he could sarv hemp-seed a peck ; 

For it was a' but nonsense ! 
The auld guid-man raught down the pock, 

An' out a handfu' gied him ; 
Syne bad him slip frae 'mang the folk, 

Sometime when nae ane see'd him, 

An' try't that night. 

XVIII. 

He marches thro' amang the stacks, 

Tho' he was something sturtin. 
The yraip he for a harrow taks. 

An' haurls at his curpin : 
An' ev'ry now an' then he says, 

'* Hemp-seed I saw thee, 
An' her that is to be my lass, 

Come after me, and draw thee, 

As fast this night." 

XIX. 

He whistl'd up Lord Lennox' uiarch. 

To keep his courage cheery ; 
Altho' his hair began to arch, 

He was sac fley'd an' eerie : 
Till presently he hears a squeak, 

An' then a grane an' gruntle ; 
He by his shouther gae a keek, 

An' tumbl'd wi' a wintle 

Out-owre that night. 

XX. 

He roar'd a horrid murder shout, 

In dreadfu' des2)eration ! 
An' young an' auld cam riunin' out. 

To hear the sad narration : 



* Steal out unperceived, and sow a handful of hemi-i- 
seed ; harrowing it with any thing you can convenient- 
ly draw after you. Repeat now and then, « llcmp-seed 
I saw thee: hemp-seed I saw thee ; and him (or her) 
that is to be my true-love, come after me and pou 
thee.' Look over your left shoulder, and you will see 
the appearance of the person invoked, in the attitude 
ot pulhng hemp. Some traditions say, ' come affer 
me, and shaw thee,' that is, show thyself : in which 
case It snnply appears. Others omit the harrowinj', 
and say, ' come after mc, oud liairow thee.' 






POEMS. 



27 



He Kwoor 'twas hilcJiiii Joan M'Craw, 
Or croucliio IMcrraii Tfumphie, 

Till stop ! she trottctl tliro' them a' ; 
An' wha was it but Grumphic 

Asteer that night ! 

XXI. 

Mog fain wad to the ham hae gane, 

To win three toecJits o' naething ; * 
But for to meet the deil her lane, 

She pat but little faith in : 
She gies the herd a pickle nits, 

An' twa red cheekit a])ples, 
To watcli, while for the liuim she sets, 

la hopes to see Tarn Kipples 

That vera night. 

XXTI. 

She turns the key wi' cannie thraw, 

An' owre the threshold ventures ; 
But first on S.iwnie gies a ca', 

Syne bauldly in she enters ; 
A ration rattled up the wa', 

An' she cry'd, L — d preserve her ! 
An' ran thro' midden-hole an' a'. 

An' pray'd wi' zeal and fervour, 

Fu' fast that night. 

XXITI. 

They hoy't out Will, wi' sair advice ; 

Then hecht him some fine braw anc ; 
It chauc'd tli(! stark \\g foddomd thrice,\ 

Was timmer-prapt for thrawin' ; 
He taks a swirlie auld moss-oak, 

For some black, grousome carlin ; 
An' loot a wince, an' drew a stroke, 

Till skin in blypes cam haurlin' 

Aff's nieves that night. 

XXIV. 

A wanton widow Leezie was. 

As canty as a kittlen ; 
But (])ch ! that night, amang the shaws, 

She got a fearfu' settlin' 1 
She thro' the whins, an' by the ciiirn. 

An' owre the hill gaed scrievin', 
Whare three lairds' lands met at a hvrn,\ 
• To dip her left sark-sleeve in, 

Was bent that nisht. 



* This charm must likewise be performed iinper 
ceived, and alone. You go to the Imrn, and open both 
doors, taking them off the hinges, if possible ; lor there 
is danger, that the being about to appear, may shut 
the doors, and do you some mischief. Then take that 
instrument used in winnowing the corn, which, in our 
country dialect, we call a wedit, and go through all the 
attitudes of letting down corn against the wind. Re- 
peat it three times ; a!id the third time an apparition 
will pass through the barn, in at the wiiidv door, and 
out at the other, having both the figure in (juestion, 
and the appearance or retinue, marking the employ- 
ment, or station in life. 

t Take an opportunity of going, unnoticed, to a 
Bear-stack, and fathom it three times round. The 
last fathom of the last time you will catch in your 
arms the appearance of your future conjugal yoke- 
fellow. 

% You go out, one or more, for this is a social spell, 
to a south running spring or rivulet, where ' three 
iairUs' lands meet,' and dip your left shirt skcvc, Go 



XXV, 

Wliyles owre a linn the burnie plays, 

As thro' tin; glen it wimjd't ; 
Whyles round a rocky scar it strays ; 

Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't ; 
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, 

AVi' bickering, dancing dazzle ; 
Whyles cookit underneath the biaes, 

Below the spreading hazel. 

Unseen that night. 

XXVI. 

Amang the brackens, on the brae, 

Between her an' the moon. 
The deil, or else an outler quey. 

Gat up an' gae a croon : 
Poor Leezie's heart maist lap the hool ; 

Ne'er lavrock-height she jumpit. 
But mist a fit, an' in the pool 

Out-owre the lugs she plumpit, 

Wi' a plunge that night. 

XXVII. 

In order, on the clean hearth-stane, 

The biggies three * are ranged. 
And ev'ry time great care is ta'en, 

To see them duly changed : 
Auld uncle John, wha wedlock's joys 

Sin' Mar^s-T/ear did desire, 
Because he gat the toom-dish thrice. 

He heav'd them on the fire. 

In wrath that night. 

XXVIII. 

Wi' merry sangs, an' friendly cracks, 

I wat they did na weary ; 
An* unco tales, and funnie jokes. 

Their sports were cheap an' cheery : 
Till buttered so'ns,f wi' fragrant lunt. 

Set a' their gabs a-steeriu' ; 
Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt. 

They parted atf careerin' 

Fu' blithe that night. 



to bed in sight of a fire, and hang your wet sleeve be- 
fore it to dry. Lie awake ; and some time near mid- 
night, an apparition, having the exact figure of the 
grand object ni question, will come and turn the sleeve 
as if to dry the other side of it. 

* Take thrte dishes, put clean water in one, foul 
water in another, leave the third empty ; blindfold a 
person, and lead him to the hearth where the dishes 
are ranged : he (or she) dips the left hand ; if by 
clmnce in the clean water, the future husband or wife 
will come to the bar of matrimony a maid ; if in the 
foul, a widow ; if in the empty dish, it foretells, with 
equal certainty, no marriage at all. It is repeated 
three times, and every time the arrangement of the 
dishes is altered. 

t Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is 
always the Halloween Supper. 



28 



BURNS' WORKS. 



THE 

AULD FARMER'S 

NEW-TEAR MORNING SALUTATION TO HIS 

AULD MARE MAGGIE, 

ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIPP OF CORN 
TO HANSEL IN THE NEW YEAR. 

A Guid New- Year I wish thee, Maggie ! 
Hae, there's a ripp to thy auld baggie : 
Tho' thou's howe-backit, now, an' knaggie, 

I'vn seen the day. 
Thou could hae gaen like onie staggie 

Out-owre the lay. 

Tho' now thou's dowie, stiff, an' crazy, 
An' thy auld hide's as white's a daisy, 
I've seen thee dappl't, sleek, an' glaizie, 

A bounie gray : 
He should been tight that daur't to raize tliee, 

Ance in a day. 

Thou ance was i' the foremost rank, 
A Jilly buirdly, steeve, an' swank. 
An' set weel down a shapely shank 

As e'er tred yird ; 
An' could hae flown out-owre a stank, 

Like onie bird. 

It's now some nine-an'-twenty year, 
Sin' thou was my guid father's 7neere ; 
He gied me thee, o' tocher clear, 

An' fifty mark ; 
Tho' it was sma', 'twas weel-won gear. 

An' thou was stark. 

When first I gaed to woo ray Jenny, 
Ye then was trottin' wi' your rainnie : 
Tho' ye was trickie, slee, an' funnie. 

Ye ne'er was donsie, 
But hanieJy, tawie, quiet, an' cannie. 

An' unco sousie. 

That day, ye pranc'd wi' muckle pride, 
When ye bure harae my bonnie hride .- 
An' sweet an* gracefu' she did ride, 
Wi* maiden air ! 
Kyle Stewart I could bragged wide, 
For sic a pair. 

Tho' now ye dow but hoyte an' hobble, 
An' wintle like a samount-coble. 
That day ye was a jinker noble, 

Fer heels an' win' ! 
An' ran them till they a' did wauble, 

Far, far behin'. 

When thou an' I were young and skeigh, 
An' stable-meals at fairs were dreigh, 
How thou wad prance, an' snore, an' skreigh, 

^u' tak the road ! 
Town's bodies ran, an' stood abeigh, 

An' ca't tbee mad. 



When thou was corn't, an' I was melloTi", 
We took the road aye like a swallow ; 
At Brooses thou had ne'er a fellow, 

For pith an' speed ; 
But ev'ry tail thou pay't them hollow, 

Whare'er thou gaed. 

The sma', droop-rumpl't, hunter cattle, 
Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle ; 
But sax Scotch miles thou try't their mettle. 

An' gar't them whaizle ; 
Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle 

O' saugh or hazel. 

Thou was a noble fittie-lan. 
As e'er in tug or tow was drawn ; 
Aft thee an' I, in aught hours gaun, 

On guid ]\Iarch weather, 
Hae turn'd sax rood beside our han', 

For days thegither. 

Thou never braindg't, an' fetch't, an' fliskit, 
But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit, 
An' spread abreed thy weel-fill'd brisket, 

Wi' pith an' pow'r. 
Till spritty knowes wad rair't an"' risket, 

An' slypet owre. 

Wlien frosts lay lang, an' snaws were deep, 
An' threaten'd labour back to keep, 
I gied thy co(/ a wee bit heap 

Aboon the timmer : 
I ken'd my Magpie wadna sleep 

For that, or simmer. 

In cart or car thou never reestit ; 
The steyest brae thou wad hae fac't it ; 
Thou never lap, and sten't, and breastit. 
Then stood to blaw ; 
But just thy step a wee thing hastit. 

Thou snoov't awa. 

My pleugh is now thy bairn-time a' ; 
Four gallant brutes as e'er did draw ; 
Forbye sax mae, I've sell't awa. 

That thou hast nurst : 
They drew me thretteen pund an' twa. 

The vera warst. 

Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought. 
An' wi' the weary warl' fought ! 
An' monie an anxious day, I thought 

We wad be beat ! 
Yet here to crazy age we're brought, 

Wi' something yet. 

And think na, my auld, trusty servan', 
That now perhaps thou's less deservin'. 
An' thy auld days may end in starvin', 

For my last fou, 
A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane 

Laid by for you. 

We've worn to crazy years thegither ; 
We'll tovte about wi' ane anither : 



POEMS, 



29 



Wr tentie care I'll flit thy tether, 

To some hain'd rig, 

M'hare ye may nobly rax your leather, 
Wi' sma' fatigue. 



TO A MOUSE, 

ON TURNING IIER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE 
PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785. 

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, 
O, what a panic's in thy breastie ! 
Thou need na' start awa sae hasty, 

Wi* bickering brattle ! 
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, 

Wi' murd'ring pattlc ! 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
Has broken Nature's social union, 
An' justifies that ill opinion 

Which makes thee startle 
At me, thy poor earth-born companion 
An* fellow-mortal ! 

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve ; 
What then ? poor beastie, thou man live ! 
A daimen icker in a thrave 

'S a sma' request : 
I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave. 

An' never miss't ! 

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin ! 
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin' ! 
An' naething, now, to big a new ane, 

O' foggage green ! 
An' bleak December's winds ensuin', 

Baith snell an' keeu ! 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste. 
An* weary winter comin' fast. 
An' cozie here, beneath the blast, 

Thou thought to dwell, 
Till crash ! the cruel coulter past 

Out thro' thy cell. 

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stil)ble, 
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble ! 
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, 

But house or hald, 
To thole the winter's sleety dribble, 

An' cranreuch cauld ! 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane. 
In proving foresight may be vain : 
The best laid schemes o' mice an' 7nen, 

Gang aft agley. 
An' lea'e us nought but grief an pain, 

For prDraft'd joy. 

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me f 
The present only toucheth tbco ; 



But, Och ! I backward cast my e'e 

On prospects drear 

An' forward, tlvough I canna sec, 

I giiess an' fear. 



A WINTER NIGHT. 



Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, 
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm ! 
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides, 
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you 
From seasons such as these 1—Sfiaksei)eare, 



When biting Soreas, fell and doure, 
Sharp shivers through the leafless bow'r ; . 
When Phcehus gi'es a short-liv'd glower 

Far south the lift. 
Dim-dark' ning through the flaky show'r 

Or whirling drift : 

Ae night the storm the steeplss rocked. 
Poor labour sweet in sleep was locked. 
While burns, wi' sn<awy wreaths up-choked, 

Wild -eddying swirl, 
Or through the mining outlet bocked, 

Down headlong hurl. 

List'ning, the doors an' winuocks rattle, 
I thought me on the ourie cattle. 
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 

O' winter war, 
And through the drift, deep-lairing sprattle, 

Beneath a scar. 

Tlk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, 
That in the merry month o* spring. 
Delighted me to hear thee sing. 

What comes o' thee ? 
Whare wilt thou cow'r thy cluttering wing, 

An' close thy e'e ? 

Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd, 
Lone from your savage homes exil'd. 
The blood- stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoird, 

My heart forgets. 
While pitiless the tempest wild 

Sore on you beats. 

Now Phcehe, in her midnight reign, 
Dark muffled, view'd the dreary plain ; 
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train, 

Rose in my soul, 
When on my ear this plaintive strain. 

Slow, solemn stole — 

' Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust ! 
And freeze, ye bitter-biting frost ; 
Descend, ye chilly, smotheriug snows ; 
Not all y(uir rage, as now, united, shows 

INIore hard unkindness, unrelenting, 

Yengeful malice unrepenting, 



30 



BURNS* WORKS. 



Than heavea-illumiu'd man on brother man 
bestows ! 
See stern Oppression's iron grip. 
Or mad Ambition's gory hand, 
Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip, 

Woe, Want, and INlurder o'er a land ! 
Even in the peaceful rural vale. 
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, 
How pampered Luxury, Flatt'ry by her side, 
The parasite empoisoning her ear, 
With all the servile wretches in the rear, 
Looks o'er proud propert}^, extended wide ; 
And eyes the simple rustic hind. 

Whose toil upholds the glitt'ring show, 
A creature of another kind, 
Some courser substance, unrefined. 
Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, 
below. 
Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe, 
With lordly Honour's lofty brow. 
The powers you proudly own ? 
Is there, beneath Love's noble nanip, 
Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim, 

To bless himself alone ! 
Mark maiden-innocence a prey 

To love-pretending snares, 
This boasting Honour turns away, 
Shunning soft Pity's rising sway, 
Regardless of the tears, and unavailing pray'rs ! 
Perhaps, this hour, in Mis'ry's sqiialid nest, 
She strains your infant to her joyless breast. 
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rock- 
ing blast ! 
Oh ye ! who, sunk in beds of down. 
Feel not a want but what yourselves create. 
Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate, 
Whom friends and fortune quite disown ! 
Ill-satisfy'd keen Nature's clam'rous call, 

Stretch'd on his straw he lays himself to 
sleep, 
W\u\e thro' the rugged roof and chinky wall. 
Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap ! 
Think on the dungeon's grim confine, 
Wliere guilt and poor misfortune pine ! 
Guilt, erring man, relenting view ! 
But shall thy legal rage pursue 
The wretch, already crushed low 
By cruel Fortune's undeserved blow ? 
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress, 
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the 
bliss!' 

I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer 

Shook off the pouthery snaw, 
And hail'd the morning witli a cheer, 

A cottage-rousing craw. 

But deep this truth impressed my mind — 

Thro' all his works aliroad, 
The heart benevolent and kind 

The most resembles God. 



EPISTLE TO DAVIE, 



A BROTHER POET.* 



Janrmry 



I. 



WnitE winds frac aff Ben-Lomond blaw, 
And bar the doors wi' driving snaw, 

And hing us owre the ingle, 
I set me down to pass the time. 
And spin a verse or twa o' rhyme. 

In hamely westlan jingle. 
While frosty winds blaw in the drift, 

Ben to the chimla lug, 
I grudge a wee the great folk's gift, 
That live sae bien and snug : 
I tent less, and want les3 
Their roomy fireside ; 
But hanker and canker, 
To see their cursed pride. 

n. 

Its hardly in a body's pow'r 
To keep at times frae being sour, 
To see how things are shar'd ; 
How best o' chiels are whiles in want. 
While coofs on countless thousands rant, 

An' ken na how to wair't : 
But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head, 

Tho' we hae little gear. 
We're fit to win our daily bread. 
As lang's we're hale and fier : 
' Mair speir na, nor fear na'f 
Auld age ne'er mind a feg, 
The last o't, the warst o't, 
Is only for to beg. 

in. 

To lie in kilns and barns at e'en, 
When banes are craz'd and bluid is thin, 

Is, doubtless, great distress ! 
Yet then, content could make us blest ; , 
Ev'n then sometimes we'd snatch a taste 

Of truest happiness. 
The honest heart that's free fi'ae a' 

Intended fraud or guile, 
However fortune kick the ba'. 
Has aye some cause to smile ; 
And mind still, you'll find still, 

A comfort this nae sma' : 
Nae mair then, we'll care then, 
Nae farther can we fa'. 

IV. 

Wluit though, like commoners of air. 
We wander out we know not where. 

But either house or hall ? 
Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods, 
The sweeping vales, and foaming floods. 

Arc free alike to all. 
In days when daisies deck the ground, 

Aud blackbirds whistle clear. 



* David Sillar, one of the club at Tarbolton, and 
author of a vohiine of poems hi the Scottish dialect, 
t Ilamsay. 



POEMS. 



31 



With honest joy our hearts will houinl, 
To see the coming- year : 

On braes when we please, then, 
We'll sit and sowth a tune ; 
Syne rhyme till't, we'll time tiil't, 
And sing't when we hae done. 

V. 

It's no in titles nor in rank ; 

It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank, 

To purchase peace and rest ; 
It's no in making muckle mair : 
It's no in books ; it's no in lear, 

To mak us truly blest ! 

If happiness hae not her seat 

And centre in the breitst, 

We may be wise, or rich, or great, 

But never can be blest : 

Nae treasures, nor pleasures, 

Could make us hajjpy lang ; 
The heart ay'es the part aye. 
That makes us right or wraug. 

VI. 

Think ye that sic as you and I, 

Wha drudge and drive through wet an' dry, 

Wi' never-ceasing toil ; 
Think ye, are we less blest than thoy, 
Wha scarcely tent us in their way. 

As hardly worth their while ? 

Alas ! how oft in haughty mood, 

God's creatures they oppress ! 

Or else, neglecting a' that's guid, 

They riot in excess ? 
* Baith careless and fearless 
Of either heav'n or hell ; 
Esteeming and deeming 
It's a' an idle tale 1 

VII. 

Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce ; 
Nor make our scanty pleasures less, 

By pining at our state ; 
And, even should misfortunes come, 
I here wha sit, hae met wi' some, 

An's thankfu' for them yet. 
They gle the wit of age to youth ; 
They let us ken oursel' ; 
They make us sec the naked truth. 
The real guid and ill. 
Tho' losses and crosses, 

Be lessons right severe. 
There's wit there, ye'U get there, 
Ye'U find nae otlier where. 

VIII. 

But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts ! 

(To say aught else wad wrang the cartes, 

And flatt'ry I detest) 
This life has joys for you and I ; 
Aind joys that riches ne'er could buy ; 

And joys the very best. 
There's a' the pleastires o' the heart. 

The lover an' the frien' ; 
Ye hae your Mery, your dearest part, 

And I my darling Jean ! 



It warms me, it charms me, 
To mention but her name ; 

It heats me, it beets mc. 
And sets me a' on flame ! 

IX. 

C) all ye Powers who rule above ! 
O 2'hou whose very self art love ! 

Thou kuowest my words sincere ! 
The life-blood streaming thro' my heart, 
Or my more dear immortal pait, 

Is not more fondly dear ! 
When heart-corrotling care and giief 

Deprive my soul of rest. 
Her dear idea brings relief 
And solace to my breast. 
Thou Being, All-seeing, 

O hear my feivent pray'r ; 
Still take her and make her 
Thy most peculiar care ! 

X. 

All hail, ye tender feelings dear ! 
The smile of love, the friendly tear, 

The sympathetic glow ; 
Long since, this world's thorny ways 
Had numbered out my weaiy days. 

Had it not been for you ! 
Fate still has blest me with a friend. 

In every care and ill ; 
And oft a more endearing band, 
A tie more tender still. 
It lightens, it brightens 
The tenebrific scene. 
To meet with, and greet with 
]My Davie or my Jean. 

XL 

O, how that name inspires my style ! 
The words come skelj)iu' rank and file, 

Amaist before I ken ! 
The ready measure rins as fine. 
As Pha-biis and the famous Nine 

Were glowrin' owre my pen. 
INfy spaviet Pegasus will limp. 

Till ance he's fairly het ; 
And then he'll hiltch, and stilt, and jiuip, 
An' rin an' unco fit : 

But lest then, the beast then. 
Should rue liis hasty ride, 
I'll light now, and dight now 
His sweaty wizen'd hide. 



THE LAMENT, 



OCCASIONED BY TIIEtJNKORTUNATK ISSUE OP A 
friend's AMOUK. 



Aliis ! Iiow oft does Goodness woiuul itself. 
Ami sweet Ajffiction prove the spring of woe 



O THOU pale orb, that silent shines, 
While care-untroubled mwtals sleep' 



32 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Thou seest a wretch that inly piaes, 
And wanders here to wail and weep ! 

With woe I nightly vigils keep. 

Beneath thy wan unwarming beam • 

And mourn, in lamentation deep, 
How life and love are all a dream. 

II. 

I joyless view thy rays adorn 

The faintly-marked distant hill : 
I joyless view thy trembling horn, 

Reflected in the gurgling rill : 
My fondly-fluttering heart be still ! 

Thou busy power, Remembrance, cease ! 
Ah ! must the agonizing thrill 

For ever bar returning peace ! 

III. 

No idly-felgn'd poetic pains, 

My sad, love-lorn laraentings claim ; 
No shepherd's pipe — Aixadian strains ; 

No fabled tortures, quaint and tame : 
The plighted faith ; the mutual flame ; 

The oft-attested Powers above; 
The promised Father'' s tender name ; 

These were the pledges of ray love ! 

IV. 

Encircled in her clasping arms, 

How have the raptur'd moments flown ! 
How have I wish'd for Fortune's charms, 

For her dear sake, and hers alone ! 
And must I think it ? is she gone. 

My secret heart's exulting boast ? 
And does she heedless hear my groan ? 

And is she ever, ever lost ! 

V. 

Oh ! can she bear so base a heart, 

So lost to honour, lost to truth, 
As from the fondest lover part, 

The plighted husband of her youth ! 
Alas ! life's path may be unsmooth ! 

Her way may lie thro' rough distress ! 
Then, who her ])angs and pains will sooth ? 

Her sorrows share and make them less ? 

VI. 

Ye winged hours that o'er us past, 

Enraptur'd more, the more eujoy'd. 
Your dear remembrance in my breast, 

My fondly-treasur'd thoughts employ'd. 
That breast, how dreary now, and void, 

For her too scanty once of room ! 
Ev'n ev'ry ray of hope destroy'd, 

And not a wish to gild the gloom ! 

VII. 

The morn that warns th' approaching day, 
• Awakes me up to toil and woe : 
I see the hours in long array. 

That I must sufler, lingering, slow. 
Full many a pang, and many a throe, 

Keen recollection's direful train, 



IMust wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low, 
Shall kiss the distant, western main. 

vin. 

And when my nightly couch I try, 

Sorc-harass'd out with care and grief, 
]My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye. 

Keep watchings with the nightly thief : 
Or if I slumber, fancy, chief. 

Reigns haggard-wild, in sore affright : 
Ev'n day, all-bitter, brings relief. 

From such a horror-breathing night. 

IX. 

O ! thou bright queen, who o'er th' expanse 

Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway ; 
Oft has thy silent-marking glance 

Observ'd us, fondly wandering, stray : 
The time, unheeded, sped away, 

While love's luxurious pulse beat high. 
Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray, 

To mark the mutual-kindling eye. 

X. 

Oh ! scenes in strong remembrance set ! 

Scenes, never, never, to return ! 
Scenes, if in stupor I forget. 

Again I feel, again I burn ! 
From ev'ry joy and pleasure torn. 

Life's weaiy vale I'll wander thro' ; 
And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn 

A faithless woman's broken vow. 



DESPONDENCY : 



I. 

Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care, 
A burden more than I can bear, 

I sit me down and sigh : 
O life ! thou art a galling load. 
Along a rough, a weary road. 

To wretches such as I ! 
Dim backward as I cast my view. 

What sick'ning scenes appear ! 
What sorrows yet may pierce me thro*. 
Too justly I may fear ! 
Still caring, despairing. 

Must be ray bitter doom ; 
ftly woes here shali close ne'er. 
But with the closing tomb ! 

II. 

Happy ye sons of busy life. 
Who, equal to the bustling strife. 

No other view regard ! 
Ev'n when the wished end's deny'd, 
Yet while the busy means are ply'd, 

They bring their own reward : 
Whilst I, a hope-abandon 'd wight, 

Unfitted with an aim, 
Meet ev'ry sad returning night. 

And joyless morn the same ; 



POEMS. 



33 



You, bustling, and justling, 
Forget each grief and pain ; 

I, listless, yet restless. 
Find ev'ry prospect vain. 

III. 

How blest the solitary's lot, 
Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot, 

Within his humble cell, 
The cavern wild with tangling roots, 
Sits o'er his newly-gather'd fruits, 

Beside his crystal well ! 
Or, haply, to his ev'ning thought, 

By unfrequented stream, 
The ways of men arc distant brought, 
A faint collected dream : 
While praising, and raising 

His thoughts to heav'n on high, 
As wand'ring, meand'ring. 
He views the solemn sky. 

IV. 

Thau I, no lonely hermit placed 
Where never human footstep traced, 

Less fit to play the part ; 
The lucky moment to improve, 
And just to stop, dud just to move, 

With self-respecting ait : 
But ah ! those pleasures, loves, and joys. 

Which I too keenly taste, 
The Solitary can despise. 
Can want, and yet be blest ! 
He needs not, he heeds not, 

Or human love or hate, 
Whilst I here must cry here, 
At perfidy ingrate ! 



Oh ! enviable, early days, 

When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze, 

To care, to guilt unknown ! 
How ill-exchanged for riper times, 
To feel the follies, or the crimes. 

Of others, or my own ! 
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport, 

Like linnets in the bush, 
Ye little know the ills ye court. 
When manhood is your wish ! 
The losses, the crosses. 

That active man engage .' 
The fears all, the tears all. 
Of dim decHning age ! 



WINTER 



The wintry west extends his blast, 

And hail and rain does blaw ; 
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth 

The blinding sleet and snaw : 
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down, 

And roars frac bank to brae ) 



And bird and beast in c«overt rest- 
And pass the heartless day. 

IL 

" The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast," * 

The joyless winter-day, 
Let others fear, to me more dear 

Than all the i)rlde of INIay : 
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, 

My griefs it seems to join. 
The leafless trees my fancy please, , 

Their fate resembles mine ! 

IIL 

Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme 

These woes of mine fulfil, 
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best, 

Because they are Thy Will ! 
Then all I want (O, do thou grant 

This one request of mine ! ) 
Since to enjoy thou dost deny, 

Assist me to resign. 



COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 



INSCRIBED TO R. AIKEN, ESQ. 



Let not ambition mock their useful toil. 
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 

Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile. 
The short and simple annals of the poor. — Gray. 



My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected 
friend ! 
No mercenary bard his homage pays : 
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end. 
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and 
praise : 
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, 

The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene ; 

The native feelings strong, the guileless 

ways ; [been ; 

What Aitken in a cottage would have 

Ah ! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, 

I ween ! 

n. 

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sough ; 
The short'ning winter-day is near a close ; 
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ; 
The black'ning trains o' craws to their 
repose : 
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes. 

This night his weekly moil is at an end. 
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his 
hoes. 
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, 
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does 
hameward bend. 



* Dr. Young. 



34 



BURNS' WORKS. 



III. 

At length his lonely cot appears in view, 

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
Th' expectant wee things, toddlin, stacher 
thro' [an' glee. 

To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise 
His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily, 

His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie^s 
smile, 
The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 
Dtfts a" his weary carking cares beguile, 
And makes him quite forget his labour an' his 
toil. 

IV. 

Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in, 

At service out, amang the farmers roun', 
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentle 
rin 
A cannie errand to a neebor town ; 
Their eldest hope, their Jenny^ woman 
grown. 
In youthfu' bloom, love sparklin' in her e'e, 
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a bra' new 
gown. 
Or deposit her sair-won penny-fee. 
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 

v. 

Wi' joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet. 

An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers : 

The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd 

fleet; 

Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears ; 

The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; 

Anticipation forward points the view. 
The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears. 
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the 
new ; 
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 

VI. 

Their master's an' their mistress's command, 

The younkers a' are warned to obey ; 
And mind their labours wi' an eyedent hand. 

And ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play : 
• An' O ! be sure to fear the Lord alway ! 

An' mind your duty, duly> morn an' night ! 
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, 

Implore his counsel and assisting might : 
They never sought in vain that sought the 
Lord aright !' 

VIL 

But hark ! a rap comes gently to the door ; 

Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, 
Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor. 

To do some errands, and convoy her hame. 
The wily mother sees the conscious flame 

Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek ; 
Wi' heart-struck anxious care, inquires his 
name, 
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak ; 
Weel pleas'd the mother hears it's nac wild, 
worthless rake. 



VIII. 

Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben ; 
A strappin youth ; he taks the mother's eye ; 
Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en ; 
The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and 
kye. [joy. 

The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi* 
But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel 
behave ; 
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 
What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae 
grave ; 
Weel pleas'd to think her bairns respected like 
the lave. 

IX. 

O happy love ! where love like this is found ! 
O heart-felt raptures ! bliss beyond com- 
pare ! 
I've paced much this weary mortal round. 

And sage experience bids me this declare—. 
< If Heav'n a draught of heavenly pleasure 
spare. 
One cordial in this melancholy vale, ' 
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, 
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, 
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the 
ev'ning gale.' 

X. 

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart— 
A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth ! 
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art. 

Betray sweet Jenny* s unsuspecting youth ? 
Curse on his perjur'd arts ! dissembling smooth! 
Are honour, virtue, conscience all exil'd ? 
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, 

Points to the parents fondling o'er their 
child ! 
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distrac- 
tion wild ? 

.XL 

But now the supper crowns their simple 
board, 
Thehalesome parritch, chxeio' Scotia's food : 
The sowpe their only Haivkie does afford. 
That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her 
cood : 
The dame brings forth in complimental mood. 
To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck 
fell. 
An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid ; 
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell. 
How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the 
bell. 

XIL 

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 

The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, 
The big ha^-Bihle, ance his father's pride : 

His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside. 

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare : 

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion 
glide, 



POEMS. 



35 



He wales a portion witli judicious care ; 
And * Let us worship God !' he says, with 
solemn air. 

XIII. 

They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; 

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest 

aim : [rise ; 

Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures 

Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name ; 
Or noble Elgin beets the heav'n-ward flame, 

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays ; 
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame ; 

The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise ; 
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 

XIV. 

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 
How Abram was the friend of God on high; 
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
Or how the royal hard did groaniug lie [ire ; 
Beneath the stroke of Heav'n's avenging 
Or, JoVs pathetic plaint, and waiHng cry ; 
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; 
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

XV. 

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, 

How guiltless blood for guilty man was 

shed ; [name, 

How He, who bore in Heaven the second 

Had not on earth whereon to lay his head ; 

How his first followers and servants sped ; 

The precepts sage they wrote to many a 
How he, who lone in Patmos banished, [laud : 
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand ; 
And heard great JBablon's doom pronounced by 
Heaven's command. 

XVI. 

Then kneeling down to Heaven's eternal 

King, [prays : 

The saint, the father, and the husband 

Hope ' springs exulting on triumphant wing,* 

That thus they all shall meet in future 

There ever bask in uncreated rays, [days : 

No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear, 
Together hymning their Creator's praise. 
In such society, yet still more dear ; 
While circling time moves round in an eternal 
sphere. 

XVII. 

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride. 

In all the pomp of method, and of art. 
When men display to congregations wide. 

Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart ! 
The Poiv'r, incensed, the pageant will desert, 

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; 
But haply, in some cottage far apart, 

May hear, well-pleased, the language of the 
soul ; 
And in his book of life the inmates poor enrol. 



* Pope's Windsor Forest. 



XVIII. 

Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way ; 

The youngling cottagers retire to rest : 
The parent pair tlieir secret homage pay, 

And proffer Tip to Heaven the warm request, 
That lie who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, 

And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, 
Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best. 

For them and for their little ones provide ; 
But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine 
preside. 

XIX. 

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur 
springs, 
That makes her loved at home, revered 
abroad : 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 
" An honest man's the noblest work of 
God !" 
And certes, in fair virtue's heav'nly road, 

The cottage leaves the palace far behind ; 
What is a lordling's pomp ! a cumbrous load. 
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind. 
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined ! 

XX. 

O Scotia ! ray dear, my native soil ! 

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is 
sent ! 
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil, 
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet 
content ! 
And, O ! may Heav'n their simple lives pre- 
vent 
From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! 
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 
A virtuous populace may rise the while. 
And stand a wall of fire around their aauch- 
loved Isle. 

XXL 

O Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide, 
That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted 
heart ; 
Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, 
Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
(The patriot's God, peculiarly thou art, 

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward ! ) 
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert ; 
But still the patriot and the patriot bard. 
In bright succession raise, her ornament and 
guard ! 



MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN 



I. 

When chill November's surly blast 
Made fields and forests bare. 

One ev'ning, as I wander'd forth 
Along the banks of Ayr, 



36 



BURNS' WORKS. 



I spy'd a man, whose aged step 
Seem'd weary, worn with care; 

His face was furrowM o'er with years, 
And hoary was his hair. 

II. 

Young stranger, whither wand'rest thou ? 

Began the rev'rend sage ; 
Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, 

Or youthful pleasure's rage ? 
Or, haply, prest with cares and woes, 

Too soon thou ha^^t began 
To wander forth, with me, to mourn 

The miseiies of man ! 

III. 

The sun that overhangs yon moors, 

Out-spreading far and wide, 
Wheie hundreds labour to support 

A haughty lordling's pride ; 
I've seen yon weary wintei-sun 

Twice forty times return ; 
And ev'ry time has added proofs, 

That man was made to mourn. 

IV. 

O man ! while in thy early years, 

How prodigal of time ! 
Mis-spending all thy precious hours ; 

Thy glorious youthful prime ! 
Alternate follies take the sway ; 

Licentious passions burn ; 
Which tenfold force gives Nature's law. 

That man was made to mourn. 

V. 

Look not alone on youthful prime, 

Or manhood's active might ; 
Man then is useful to his kind, 

Supported is his right : 
But see him on the edge of life. 

With cares and sorrows worn. 
Then age and want, Oh ! ill-match'd pair 

Show man was made to mourn. 

VI. 

A few seem favourites of fate, 

In pleasure's lap carest ; 
Yet, think not all the rich and great 

Are likewise truly blest. 
But, Oh ! what crowds in every land, 

Are wretclied and forlorn ; 
Thro' weary life this lesson learn. 

That man was made to mourn. 



VIL 

Many and sharp the num'rous ills. 

Inwoven with our frame ! 
More pointed still we make ourselves, 

Regret, remorse, and shame ! 
And man, whose heav'n-crected face 

The smiles of love adorn, 
Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn ! 



VIII. 

See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight, 

So abject, mean, and vile, 
Who begs a brother of the earth 

To give him leave to toil ; 
And see his lordly fellow-worm 

The poor petition spurn. 
Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife 

And helpless offspring mourn. 

IX. 

If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave — 

By Nature's law design'd. 
Why was an independent wish 

E'er planted in my mind ? 
If not, why am I subject to 

His cruelty or scorn ? 
Or why has man the will and pow'r 

To make his fellow mourn ? 

X. 

Yet, let not this too much, my son. 

Disturb thy youthful breast : 
This partial view of human-kind 

Is surely not the last ! 
The poor, oppressed, honest man, 

Had never, sure, been born. 
Had there not been some recompense 

To comfort those that mourn ! 

XI. 

O Death ! the poor man's dearest friend, 

The kindest and the best ! 
Welcome the hour my aged limbs 

Are laid with thee at rest ! 
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow, 

From pomp and pleasure torn ; 
But, Oh ! a blest relief to those 

That, weary-laden, mourn ! 



A PRAYER 



IN THE PROSPKCT OF DEATH. 



I. 

O THOU unknown, Almighty Cause 

Of all my hope and fear ! 
In whose dread presence, ere an bour. 

Perhaps I must appear ! 

IL 

If I have wander'd in those paths 

Of life I ought to shun ; 
As something, loudly, in my breast, 

Remonstrates I have done ; 

III. 

Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me 
With passions wild and strong ; 

And listening to their witching voice 
Has often led me wrong. 



POEMS. 



37 



IV. 

Where liuraau weahiess has couie short, 

Or frailty stcpt aside, 
Do thou, All Good! for such thou art, 

In shades of darkness hide. 

V. 

Where with intention I have err'd. 

No other plea I have. 
But, Thou art good ; and goodness still 

Delighteth to forgive. 



STANZAS 

ON THE SAME OCCASIOK. 

Why am I loath to leave this earthly scene ? 
Have I so found it full of pleasing charms ? 
Some drops of joy with draughts of ill be- 
tween : 
Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewed 
storms : 
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms ; 

Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode ? 
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms ; 
I tremble to approach an angry God, 
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod. 

Fain would I say, * Forgive my foul offence !' 

Fain promise never more to disobey ; 
But, should my Author health again dis- 
pense, 
Again I might desert fair virtue's way ; 
Again in folly's path might go astray ; 

Again exalt the brute and sink the man ; 
Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray, 
Wlio act so counter heavenly mercy's plan ? 
Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation 
ran? 

O Thou, great Governor of all below ! 

If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee, 
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to 
blow. 
Or still the tumult of the raging sea ; 
With that controlling pow'r assist ev'n me. 
Those headlong furious passions to con- 
fine ; 
For all unfit I feel my pow'rs to be, 

To rule their torrent in th' allowed line ! 
O aid me with thy help. Omnipotence Divine ! 



J VINC: AT A REVEREND FRIEND S HOUSE ONE 
NIGHT, THE AUTHOR LEFT THE FOLLOWING 



VERSES, 



IN THE ROOM WHERE HE SLEPT. 



O THOU dread Pow'r, who reign'st above, 
I know thou wilt me hear. 



When for this scene of peace and Jove, 
I make my prayer sincere. 

II. 

The hoary sire — the mortal stroke, 
Long, long bo pleased to spare, 

To bless his little filial flock. 
And show what good men are. 

III. 

She, who her lovely offspring eyes 

With tender hopes and fears, 
O bless her with a mother's joys, 

But spare a mother's tears ! 

IV. 

Their hope, their stay, their darling youth. 
In manhood's dawning blush ; 

Bless him, thou God of love and truth, 
Up to a parent's wish ! 

V. 

The beauteous, seraph sister-band, 

With, earnest tears I pray. 
Thou know'st the snares on ev'ry hand, 

Guide thou their steps alway ! 

VI. 

When soon or late they reach that coast, 
O'er life's rough ocean driv'n. 

May they rejoice, no wand'rer lost, 
A family in Heav'n ! 



THE FIRST PSALM. 

The man, in life wherever placed. 

Hath happiness in store, 
Who walks not in the wicked's way, 

Nor learns their guilty lore ! 

Nor from the seat of scornful pride 

Casts forth his eyes abroad. 
But with humility and awe 

Still walks before bis God. 

That man shall flourisli like tlie trees 
Which by the streamlets grow ; 

The fruitful top is spread on high, 
And firm the root below. 

But ho whose blossom buds in guilt 
Shall to the ground be cast, 

And, like the rootless stubble, tost 
Before the sweeping blast. 

For why ? that God the good adore 
Hath giv'n them peace and rest, 

B>it hath decreed that wicked men 
Shall ne'er bo trulv blest. 



38 BURNS* WORKS. 

A PRAYER, TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 



UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT ANGUISH. 

O THOU Great Being ! what thou art 

Surpasses me to know : 
Yet sure am I, that known to thee 

Are all thy works below. 

Thy creature here before thee stands, 

All wretched and distrest ; 
Yet sure those ills that wring my sou] 

Obey thy high behest. 

Sure thou, Almighty, canst not act 

From cru'elty or wrath ! 
O, free ray weary eyes from tears, 

Or close them fast in death ! 

But if I must afflicted be, 

To suit some wise design ; 
Then man my soid with firm resolves, 

To bear and not repine. 



THE FIRST SIX VERSES OF 

THE NINETIETH PSALM. 

O THOU, the first, the greatest Friend 

Of all the human race ! 
Whose strong right hand has ever been 

Their stay and dwelling place ! 

Before the mountains heav'd their heads 

Beneath thy forming hand. 
Before this pond'rous globe itself 

Arose at thy command ; 

That pow'r which rais'd, and still upholds 

This universal frame, 
From countless, unbeginning time, 

Was ever still the same. 

Those mighty periods of years, 

Which seem to us so vast. 
Appear no more before thy sight. 

Than yesterday that's past. 

Thou gav'st the word : Thy creature, man, 

Is to existence brought ; 
Again thou say'st, ' Ye sons of men, 

Return ye into nought !' 

Thou layest them, with all their cares, 

In (;verlastiug sleep ; 
As with a flood thou tak'st them off 

With overwhelming sweep. 

They flourish like the morning flow'r. 

In beauty's pride array'd ; 
But long ere night cut down, it. lies 

All wither'd and decav'd. 



ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN 
APRIL, 1786. 

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, 
Thou's met me in an evil hour ; 
For I maun crush amang the stoure 

Thy slender stem ; 
To spare thee now is past my pow'r. 

Thou bonnie gem. 

Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, 

he bonny Lark, companion meet . 

Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet ! 

Wi' spreckl'd breast, 
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet 
The purpling east, 

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 
Upon thy early, humble, birth ; 
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 

Amid the storm, 
Scarce rear'd above the parent earth 

Thy tender form. 

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield. 
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield ; 
But thou beneath the random bield 

O' clod or stane, 
Adorns the histie stibble-Jield, 

Unseen, alane. 

There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, 
Thou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise ; 
But now the share uptears thy bed, 

And low thou lies ! 

Such is the fate of artless Maid, 
Svreet Jioweret of the rural shade ! 
By love's simplicity betray'd. 

And guileless trust. 
Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid 

Low i' the dust. 

Such is the fate of simple Bard, 
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd, 
Unskilful he to note the card 

Oi prudent lore, 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 

And whelm him o'er ! 

Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n, 
Who long with wants and woes has striv'n. 
By human pride or cunning driv'n 

To mis'ry's brink. 
Till wrench'd of every stay but Heaven, 

He, ruin'd, sink ! 



Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy' 
That Jut e is thine — no distant date; 



fate. 



POEiMS. 



39 



Stera Rum's ploughshare drives, elate, 
Full on thy bloom, 

Till crush'd beneath the funow's weight, 
Shall be thy doom ! 



TO RUIN. 

I. 

All hail ! inexorable lord ! 

At whose destruction-breathing word. 

The mightiest empires fall ! 
Thy cruel, woe-delighted train. 
The ministers of grief and pain, 

A sullen welcome, all ! 
With steru-resolv'd, despairing eye, 

I see each aimed dart ; 
For one has cut my dearest tie, 
And quivers in my heart. 
Then low'ring, and pouring, 

The storm no more I dread ; 
Tho' thick'ning and blackn'ing, 
Round my devoted head. 

II. 

And thou grim power, by life abhorr'd, 
While life a pleasure can afford, 
Oh ! hear a wretch's prayer : 
No more I shrink appall'd, afraid ; 
I court, I beg thy friendly aid, 
To close this scene of care ! 
When shall my soul, in silent peace, 

Resign Wfes joyless day ; 
My weary heart its throbbings cease, 
Cold mouldering in the clay? 
No fear more, no tear more, 
To stain my lifeless face j 
Enclasped, and grasped 
Within my cold embrace ! 



TO MISS L , 

WITH BEATTIe's poems, AS A NEW-TEAR's GIFT, 
JAN. 1, 1787. 

Again the silent wheels of time 

Their annual round have driv'n, 
And you, tho' scarce in maiden prime, 

Are so much nearer Heav'n. 

No gifts have I from Indian coasts 

The infant year to hail ; 
I send you more than India boasts 

In EdivivLS simple tale. 

Our sex with guile and faithless love 

Is charg'd, perhaps, too true ; 
But may, dear maid, each lover prove 

An Edioin still to you ! 



EPISTLE TO A YOUNG FRIEND 



1786. 



I LANG hae thought, my youthfu' Friend, 

A something to have sent you, 
Tho' it should serve nae other end 

Than just a kind memento ; 
But how the subject-theme may gang, 

Let time and chance determine j 
Perhaps it may turn out a sang, 

Perhaps turn out a sermon. 

II. 

Ye'll try the warld soon, my lad, 

And, Andrew dear, believe me, 
Ye'll find mankind an unco squad, 

And muckle they may grieve ye : 
For care and trouble set your thought. 

E'en when your end's attained ; 
An a' your views may come to nought. 

Where ev'ry nerve is strained. 

III. 
I'll no say, men are villains a' ; 

The real, harden 'd wicked, 
Wha hae nae check but human law, 

Are to a few restricted : 
But och, mankind are unco weak. 

An' little to be trusted ; 
If self the wavering balance shake. 

Its rarely right adjusted ! 

IV. 

Yet they wha fa' in fortune's strife 

Their fate we should na censure. 
For still th' important end of life 

They equally may answer ; 
A man may hae an honest heart, 

Tho' poortith hourly stare him ; 
A man may tak a neebor's part. 

Yet hae nae cash to spare him. 

V. 

Aye fiee aff han' your story tell, 

AVhen wi' a bosom crony ; 
But still keep something to yoursel' 

Ye scarcely tell to ony. 
Conceal yoursel' as weel's ye can 

Frae critical dissection ; 
But keek thro' every other man, 

Wi' sharpen'd sly inspection. 

VI. 

The sacred lowe o' weel-plac'd love. 

Luxuriantly indulge it ; 
But never tempt th' illicit rove, 

Tho' naething should divulge it ; 
I wave the quantum o' the sin, 

The hazard of concealing ; 
But och ! it hardens a' within. 

And petrifies the feeling ! 

YIL 

To catch dame Fortune's golden smile. 
Assiduous wait upon her j 



40 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And gatter gear by ev'ry wile 

That's justified by honour ; 
Not for to hide it in a hedge. 

Nor for a train-attendant ; 
But for the glorious privilege 

Of being independent. 

VIII. 

The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip 
To hand the wretch in order ; 

But where ye feel your honour grip, 
Let that aye be your border : 

Its slightest touches, instant pause- 
Debar a' side pretences ; 

And resolutely keep its laws, 
Uncaring consequences. 

IX. 

The great Creator to revere. 

Must sure become the creature ; 
But still the preaching cant forbear, 

And ev'n the rigid feature : 
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range, 

Be complaisance extended ; 
An Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange 

For Deity offended ! 

X. 

When ranting round in pleasure's ring, 

Religion may be blinded ; 
Or, if she gie a random sting, 

It may be little minded : 
But when on life we're tempest-driv'n, 

A conscience but a canker — 
A correspondence fix'd wi' Heav'n, 

Is sure a noble anchor. 

XI. 

Adieu, dear, amiable youth ! 

Your heart can ne'er be wanting : 
May prudence, fortitude, and truth. 

Erect your brow undaunting ! 
In ploughman phrase, ' God send you speed, 

Still daily to grow wiser > 
And may you better reck the rede, 

Than ever did th' adviser ! 



ON A SCOTCH BARD, 

GONE TO THE WEST INDIES. 

A' YE wha live by soups o' drink, 
A' ye wha live by crambo-clink, 
A' ye wha live and never think, 

Come mourn wi' me ! 
Our billie's gi'en us a' a jink. 

An' owre the sea. 

Lament him a' ye rantin core, 
Wha dearly like a random-splore, 
Nae mair he'll join the ynerri/ roar, 
In social key j 



For now he's ta'en anither shore. 

An' owre the sea. 

The bonnie lassies weel may wiss him, 
And in their dear petitions place him : 
The widows, wives, an' a' may bless him, 

Wi' tearfu' e'e ; 
For weel I wat they'll sairly miss him, 
That's owre the sea. 

O Fortune, they ha'e room to grumble ! 
Hadst thou ta'en aff some drowsy bummel, 
Wha can do nought but fyke an' fumble, 

'Twad been nae plea 
But he was gleg as ony wumble, 

That's owre the sea. 

Auld, cantie Kyle may weepers wear. 
An' stain them wi' the saut, saut tear ; 
Twill mak' her poor auld heart, I fear. 

In flinders flee ; 
He was her laureat monie a year. 

That's owre the sea. 

He saw misfortune's cauld nor-wast 
Lang mustering up a bitter blast ; 
A jillet brak' his heart at last, 

111 may she be ! 
So, took a birth afore the mast, 

An' owre the sea. 

To tremble under Fortune's cummock, 
On scarce a bellyfii' o' drummock, 
Wi' his proud, independent stomach 

Could ill agree ; 
So, row't his hurdies in a hammock, 
An' owre the sea. 

He ne'er was gi'en to great misguiding, 
Yet coin his pouches wad na bide in ; 
Wi' him it ne'er was under hiding ; 

He dealt it free : 
The muse was a' that he took pride in, 

That's owre the sea. 

Jamaica bodies, use him weel, 
An' hap him in a cozie biel ; 
Ye'll find him aye a dainty chiel. 

And fu' o' glee : 
He wadna wrang'd the vera deil. 

That's owre the sea. 

Farcweel, my rhyme-cotnposing hillie ! 
Your native soil was right ill-willie ; 
But may ye flourish like a lily. 

Now bonnilie ; 
I'll toast ye in my hindmost gillie, 

Tho' owre the sea. 



TO A HAGGIS. 

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, 
Great chieftain o' the puddin-iace ! 



POEMS. 



41 



Aboon them a' ye tak your place, 

Painch, tripe, or thaiim : 
Weel are ye wordy of a grace 

As laug's my arm. 

The groaning trencher there ye fill, 
Your hurdies like a distant hill, 
Your pin wad help to mend a mill 

In time o' need, 
While thro' your pores the dews distil 

Like amber bead. 

His knife see rustic labour dight, 
An' cut you up wi' ready slight, 
Trenching your gushing entrails bright. 

Like onie ditch ; 
And then, O what a glorious sight, 

Warm-reekin', rich ! 

Then horu for horn they stretch an' strive, 
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive. 
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve 

Are bent like drums ; 
Then auld guidman, malst like to ryve, 

Bethankit hums. 

Is there that o'er his French ragout, 
Or olio that wad staw a sow, 
Or fricassee wad raak her spew 

Wi' perfect sconner, 
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view, 

On sic a dinner ? 

Poor devil ! see him owre his trash, 
As feckless as a wither'd rash, 
His spindle-shank a guid whip-lash, 
His nieve a nit ; 
Thro' bloody flood or field to dash, 
O how unfit ! 

But mark the rustic, haggis-fed, 
The trembling earth resounds his tread, 
Clap in his walie nieve a blade, 

He'll make it whissle j 
An* legs, an* arms, an heads will sned. 
Like taps o' thrissle. 

Ye Pow'rs wha mak mankind your care, 
And dish them out their bill o' fare, 
Auld Scotland wants na skinking ware 

That jaups in luggies ; 
But, if ye wish her gratefu' pray'r, 

Gie her a Haggis ! 



A DEDICATION. 

TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. 

Expect na. Sir, in this narration, 
A fleechin, fleth'rin dedication. 
To rooze you up, an' ca* you guid. 
An' sprung o' great an' noble bluid, 
Because ye're surnamed like his grace^ 
Perhaps related to the race ; 



Then when I'm tired — and sae are ye, 
Wi* mony a fulsome, sinfu' lie. 
Set up a face, how I stop short. 
For fear your modesty be hurt. 

This may do — maun do, Sir, wi' them wha 
Maun please the great folk for a wamefu' ; 
For me ! sae laigh I needna bow, 
For, Lord be thankit, I can plough ; 
And when I downa yoke a naig, 
Then, Lord be thankit, / can beg ; 
Sae I shall say, and that's nae flatt'rin*. 
It's just sic poet an' sic patron. 

The Poet, some guid angel help liira, 
Or else, I fear some ill ane skelp him ; 
He may do weel for a' he's done yet, 
But only he's no just begun yet. 

The Patron, (Sir, ye maun forgie me, 
I winna lie, come what will o' me) 
On ev'ry hand it will allowed be. 
He's just — nae better than he should be. 

I readily and freely grant. 
He downa see a poor man want ; 
What's no his ain he winna tak it. 
What ance he says he winna break it ; 
Ought he can lend he'll no refuse' 
Till aft his goodness is abused ; 
And rascals whyles that do him wrang, 
Ev'n that, he does na mind it lang ; 
As master, landlord, husband, father 
He does na fail his part in either. 

But then, nae thanks to him for a' that j 
Nae godhj symptom ye can ca' that ; 
It's naething but a milder feature. 
Of our poor, sinfu' corrupt nature : 
Ye'll get the best o' moral works, 
'Mang black Gentoos and pagan Turks, 
Or hunters wild on Ponotaxi, ; 
Wha never heard of orthodoxy. 
That he's the poor man's friend in need. 
The gentleman in word and deed. 
It's no thro' terror of damnation ; 
It's just a carnal inclination. 

Morality, thou deadly bane, 
Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain ! 
Vain is his hope, whose stay and trust is 
In moral mercy, truth, and justice ' 

No — stretch a point to catch a plack ; 
Abuse a brother to his back j 
Steal thro' a winnock frae a wh-re, 
But point the rake that taks the door : 
Be to the poor like onie whunstane. 
And baud their noses to the grunstaue ; 
Ply ev'ry art o' legal thieving ; 
No matter, stick to sound believing. 

Learn three mile pray'rs, an' half-mile graces, 
Wi' weel-spread looves, an' lang wry faces ; 
Grunt up a solemn, lengthen'd groau, 
And damn a' parties but your own ; 
26 



42 



BURNS' WORKS. 



I'll warrant then, yeVe nae deceiver, 
A steady, sturdy, staunch believer. 

O ye wha leave the springs of Calvin, 
For gumlie dribs of your ain delvin ! 
Ye sons of heresy and error, 
Ye'U some day squeel in quaking teri'or ! 
"When vengeance draws the sword in wrath, 
And in the fire throws the sheath ; 
When ruin, with his sweeping hesom, 
Just frets till Heav'n commission gies him : 
While o'er the harp pale Misery moans. 
And strikes the ever-deep'ning tones, 
StiU louder shrieks, and heavier groans ! 

Your pardon, Sir, for this digression, 
I maist forgat my dedication ; 
But when divinity comes cross me. 
My readers still are sure to lose me. 

So, Sir, ye see 'twas nae daft vapour, 
But I maturely thought it proper. 
When a' my works I did review. 
To dedicate them. Sir, to You : 
Because (ye need na tak it ill) 
I thought them something like yoursel'. 

Then patronise them wi' your favour, 
And your petitioner shall ever—- 
I had amaist said ever prar/. 
But that's a word I need na say : 
For prayln' I hae little skill o't ; 
I'm baith dead-swew, an' wretched ill o't ; 
But I'se repeat each poor man's pray'r, 
That kens or hears about you. Sir — 

" May ne'er misfortune's gowling bark, 
Howl thro' the dwelling o' the Clerk ! 
May ne'er his gen'rous, honest heart. 
For that same gen'rous spirit smart ! 

May K 's far honour'd name 

Lang beet his hymeneal flame. 

Till H s, at least a dizen. 

Are frae her nuptial labours risen : 
Five bonnie lasses round their table. 
And seven braw fellows, stout an' able 
To serve their king and country weel, 
By word, or pen, or pointed steel ! 
May health and peace, with mutual rays. 
Shine on the evening o' his days ; 
Till his wee curlie Johns ier-oe. 
When ebbing life nae mair shall flow. 
The last, sad, mournful rites bestow !" 

I will not wind a lang conclusion, 
Wi' complimentary effusion ; 
But whilst your wishes and endeavours 
Are blest with Fortune's smiles and favours, 
I am, dear Sir, with zeal most fervent. 
Your much indebted, humble servant. 

But if (which Pow'rs above prevent !) 
That iron-hearted carl, Want, 
Attended In his grim advances. 
By sad mistakes, and black mischances, 



While hopes, and joys, and pleasures fly him. 

Make you as poor a dog as I am, 

Your humble servant thea no more ; 

For who would humbly serve the poor I 

But, by a poor man's hopes in Heaven ! 

While recollection's power is given. 

If, in the vale of humble life. 

The victim sad of fortune's strife, 

I, thro' the tender gushing tear. 

Should recognize my master dear. 

If friendless, low, we meet together, 

Then, Sir, your hand — my friend and brother ! 



TO A LOUSE 

ON SEEING ONE ON A LADy's BONNET AT 
CHURCH. 

Ha ! whare ye gaun, ye crowlln' ferlie ? 
Your impudence protects you salrly : 
I canna say but ye strunt rarely, 

Owre gauze and lace j 
Tho' faith, I fear ye dine but sparely 

On sic a place. 

Ye ugly, creepin', blastit wonner, 
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner, 
How dare you set your fit upon her, 

Sae fine a lady ! 
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner. 

On some poor body. 

Swlth, in some beggar's haffet squattle ; 
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle 
Wi' ither kindred, jumpla' cattle, 

In shoals and nations ; 
Whare horn nor bane ne'er dare unsettle 

Your thick plantations. 

Now hand you there, ye're out o' sight. 
Below the fatt'rlls, snug and tight : 
Na, faith ye yet ! ye'U no be right 

Till ye've got on it. 
The vera tapmost, tow'ring height 

O' Miss's bonnet. 

My sooth ! right bauld ye set your nose out. 
As plump and grey as ony grozet ; 

for some rank, mercurial rozet. 

Or fell, red smeddum, 
I'd gi'e you sic a hearty dose o't, 

Wad dress your droddum ! 

1 wad na been surprised to spy 
You on an auld wife's flannen toy ; 
Or alblins some bit duddie boy, 

On's wyllecoat ; 
But Miss's fine Lunardie ! fie. 

How dare ye do't ! 

O, Jenny^ dlnna toss your head. 
An' set your beauties a' abroad ! 
Ye Uttlc ken what cursed speed 

The blastie'a makia* X 



POEMS. 



43 



Thae winks ;iu«l finyer-ends, I dread, 
Are notice takiii' ! 

O wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see ourseh as others see us ! 
It wad frae inonie a blunder free us, 

And foolish notion : 
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, 

And ev'n Devotion ! 



ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH. 



Edina ! Scotia s darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and towers, 
"Where once beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat legislation's sovereign pow'rs ! 
From marking w^ildly-scatter'd flow'rs, 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, 
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours, 

I shelter in thy honour'd shade. 

II. 
Here wealth still swells the golden tide, 

As busy trade his labours plies ; 
There architecture's noble pride 

Bids elegance and splendour rise ; 
Here justice, from her native skies. 

High wields her balance and her rod ; 
There learning, with his eagle eyes, 

Seeks science in her coy abode. 

m. 

Thjr sons, Edika, social, kind, 

With open arms the stranger hail ; 
Their views enlarged, their liberal mind. 

Above the narrow, rural vale j 
Attentive still to sorrow's wail, 

Or modest merit's silent claim ; 
And never may their sources fail ! 

And never envy blot their name. 

IV. 

Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn ! 

Gay as the gilded summer sky, 
Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn, 

Dear as the raptured thrill of joy ! 
Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye, 

Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine : 
I see the sire of love on high. 

And own his work indeed divine ! 

V. 
There, watching high the least alarms. 

Thy rough rude fortress gleams afar ; 
Like some bold veteran, grey in arms, 

And mark'd with many a seamy scar : 
The pon'drous wall and massy bar. 

Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock ; 
Have oft withstood assailing war, 

Aud oft repeU'd the invader's shock. 



VI. 



With awe-struck thought, and pitying tear*, 

I view that noble, stately dome. 
Where Scotia s kings of other years. 

Famed heroes, had their royal home. 
Alas ! how changed the times to come ! 

Their royal name low in the dust ! 
Their hapless race wild-wand' ring roam ! 

Tho' rigid law cries out, 'twas just ! 

VIL 

Wild beats my heart to trace your steps, 

"Whose ancestors in days of yore. 
Thro' hostile ranks and ruin'd gaps 

Old Scotia's bloody lion bore : 
E'en / who sing in rustic lore, 

Haply my sires have left their shed. 
And feced grim danger's loudest roar, 

Bold-following where your fathers led ! 

VIII. 

Edina ! Scotia's darling seat ! 

All hail thy palaces and tow'rs. 
Where ouce beneath a monarch's feet 

Sat legislation's sov'reign pow'rs ! 
From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs, 

As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, 
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours, 

I shelter'd in thy honour'd shade. 



EPISTLE TO J. LAPRAIK, 

AN OLD SCOTTISH BARD, APRIL Ist, 1785, 

While briers an' woodbines budding green, 
An' paitricks scraichin loud at e'en. 
An' morning poussie whiddin seen. 

Inspire my muse, 
This freedom in an unknown frien* 

I pray excuse. 

On fasten-een we had a rockin'. 
To ca' the crack and weave our stockin' ; 
And there was muckle fun and jokin', 

Ye need na doubt : 
At length we had a hearty yokin' 

At sang about. 

There was ae sang amang the rest, 
Aboou them a' it pleased me best. 
That some kind husband had addrest 

To some sweet wife : 
It thirl'd the heart-strings thro' the breast, 

A* to the life. 

I've scarce heard ought described sae weel. 
What gen'rous, manly bosoms feel ; 
Thought I, ' Can this be Pope, or Steele, 

Or Beattie's wark ?' 
They tald me 'twas an odd kind chiel 

About Muirkirk. 

It pat me fidgin-fain to hear't. 
And sae about him there I spiert. 



44 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Then a' that ken't him round declared 
He had ingine. 

That nane excell'd it, few cam near't, 
It was sae fine. 

That set him to a pint of ale, 
An' either douce or merry tale, 
Or rhymes an' sangs he'd made himsel', 

Or witty catches, 
'Tween Inverness and Teviotdale, 

He had few matches, 

Then up I gat, an' swoor an aith, 
Tho' I should pawn my pleugh an' graith, 
Or die a cadger pownie's death, 

At some dyke back, 
A pint an' gill I'd gie them baith 

To hear your crack. 

But, first an' foi-emost, I should tell, 
Amaist as soon as I could spell, 
I to the crambo-jingle fell, 

Tho' rude and rough, 
Yet crooning to a body's sel' 

Does weel eneugh. 

I am nae poet, in a sense, 
But just a rhymer, like, by chance, 
An' hae to learning nae pretence. 

Yet, what the matter ? 
Whene'er my muse does on me glance, 

I jingle at her. 

Your critic folk may cock their nose, 
And say, • How can you e'er propose, 
You wha ken hardly verse frae prose. 
To mak a sang ?' 
But, by your leaves, my learned foes, 

Ye're may be wrang. 

What's a' your jargon o' your schools. 
Your Latin names for horns an' stools j 
If honest nature made you fools. 

What sairs your grammars ? 
Ye'd better taen up spades and shools, 

Or knappin-hammers. 

A set o' dull conceited hashes. 
Confuse their brains in college classes ! 
They gang in stirks, and come out asses, 

Plain truth to speak ; 
An' syne they think to climb Parnassus 

By dint o' Greek ! 

Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire ! 
That's a' the learning I desire ; 
Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire 
At pleugh or cart, 
My muse, though haraely in attire. 

May touch the heart. 

O for a spunk o' Allan's glee. 
Or Ferguson s, the baiild and slee, 
Or bright LapraiVs, my friend to be, 
If I can hit it ! 



That would be lear eneugh for me ! 
If I could get it. 

Now, Sir, if ye hae friends enow, 
Tho' real friends, I b'lieve are few, 
Yet, if your catalogue be fou, 

I'se no insist, 
But gif ye want ae friend that's true, 

I'm on your list. 

I winna blaw about mysel ; 
As ill I like my faults to tell ; 
But friends, and folk that wish me well, 

They sometimes roose me ; 
Tho' I maun own, as monie still 

As far abuse me. 

There's ae wee faut they whyles lay to me, 
I like the lasses— Guid forgie me ! 
For monie a plack they wheedle frae me. 

At dance or fair ; 
May be some ither thing they gie me 

They weel can spare. 

But Mauchline race, or Mauchline fair, 
I should be proud to meet you there ; 
We'se gie ae night's discharge to care. 

If we forgather, 
An' hae a swap o' rhyming-ware 

Wi' ane anither. 

The four-gill chap, we'se gar liim clatter, 
An' kirsen him wi' reekin' water ; 
Syne we'll sit down an' tak our whitter. 

To cheer our heart ; 
An' faith we'se be acquainted better 

Before we part. 

Awa ye selfish warly race, 
Wha think that bavins, sense, an' grace, 
Ev'n love and friendship, should give place 

To catch the plack ! 
I dinna like to see your face. 

Nor hear your crack. 

But ye whom social pleasure charms. 
Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms. 
Who hola your being on the terms, 

' Each aid the others,' 
Come to my bowl, come to my arms. 

My friends, my brothers ! 

But, to conclude my lang epistle, 
As my auld pen's worn to the grissle ; 
Twa lines frae you wad gar me fissle. 

Who am, most fei-vent. 
While I can either sing, or whissle. 

Your friend and servant. 



POEMS. 



45 



TO THE SAME. 

Ai-Rii. 21, 1785. 

While new-ca'd kye rout at the stake, 
An' pownies reek in pleugh or brake. 
This hour on e'enin's edge I take, 

To own I'm debtor 
To honest-hearted aiild Lapraik 

For his kind letter. 

Forjesket sair, with weary legs, 
Rattlin' the corn out-owre the rigs, 
Or dealing thro' amang the naigs 

Their ten hours bite, 
My awkart muse sair pleads and begs, 

I would na write. 

The tapetless ramfeezl'd hizzie, 
She's saft at best, and something lazy, 
Quo' she, * Ye ken, we've been sae busy, 
This month an' mair, 
That trouth my head is grown right dizzie, 
An' something sair.' 

Her dowflf excuses pat me mad ; 
• Conscience,' says I, ' ye thowless jad ! 
I'll write, an' that a hearty blaud, 

This vera night ; 
So dinna ye affront your trade, 

But rhyme it right. 

' Shall bauld Lapraik, the king o' hearts, 
Tho' mankind were a pack o' cartes, 
Roose you sae weel for your deserts, 

In terms sae friendly, 
Yet ye'll neglect to shaw your parts. 

An' thank him kindly ! ' 

Sae I gat paper in a blink, 
An' down gaed stumpie in the ink : 
Quoth I, ' Before I sleep a wink, 

I vow I'll close it; 
An' if ye winna mak' it clink. 

By Jove I'll prose it !' 

Sae I've begun to scrawl, but whether 
In rhyme, or prose, or baith thegither, 
Or some hotch-potch that's rightly neither. 

Let time mak proof; 
But I shall scribble down some blether 

Just clean aff loof. 

My worthy friend, ne'er grudge an' carp 
Tho' fortune use you hard an' sharp ; 
Come, kittle up your moorland harp 

Wi' gleesonie touch ! 
Ne'er mind how Fortune iraff: and tvarp ; 
She's but a b-tch. 

She's gien me monie a jirt and flcg, 
Sin' I could striddle owre a rig ; 
But, by the L — d, tho' I should beg, 
Wi* lyart pow, 



I'll laugh, an' sing, an' shake my leg. 
As lang's I dow ! 

Now comes the sax and twentieth simmer, 
I've seen the bud upo' the timmer. 
Still persecuted by the limmer, 

Frae year to year ; 
But yet, despite the kittle kinimer, 

/, Roh, am here. 

Do ye envy the city GeM, 
Behint a kist to lie and sklent. 
Or purse-proud, big wi' cent, per cent. 

And muckle wame, 
In some bit brugh to represent 

A Bailies name ? 

Or is't the paughty feudal thane, 
Wi' ruffled sark and glancin' cane, 
Wha thinks himself nae sheep-shank bane, 

But lordly stalks, 
While caps an' bonnets aff are taen, 
As by he walks ? 

* O Thou wha gies us each guid gift ! 
Gie me o' wit and sense a lift. 
Then turn me, if Thou please, adrift 

Thro' Scotland wide : 
Wi' cits nor lairds I wadna shift, 

In a' their pride !' 

Were tliis the charter of our state, 
' On pain o' hell be rich and great,' 
Damnation then would be our fate. 

Beyond remead ; 
But, thanks to Heav'n ! that's no the gate 
We learn our creed. 

For thus the royal mandate ran, 
When first the human race began, 
' The social, friendly, honest man, 

Whate'er he be, 
'Tis he fulfils great Nature's plan, 

An' none but he !' 

O mandate glorious and divine ! 
The ragged followei's o' the Nine, 
Poor, thoughtless devils ! yet may shine 

In glorious light, 
While sordid sons of Mammon's line 

Are dark as night. 

Tho' here they scrape, an' squeeze, an' growI| 
Their worthless nievefu' o' a soul 
IMay in some future carcase howl 

The forest's fright ; 
Or in some day-detesting owl 

May shun the light. 

Then may Lapraik and Burns arise, 
To reach their native, kindred skies. 
And sing their pleasures, hopes, and joys. 

In some mild sphere, 
Still closci knit in friendship's ties, 

Each passing year. 



46 



BURNS' WORKS. 



TO W. S- 



■N, 



OCHILTREE, 

May 1785. 
I GAT your letter, winsome Willie : 
Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you brawHe j 
Tho' I maun say't, I wad be silly, 

An' unco vain, 
Should I believe, my coaxin' billie. 

Your flatter in' strain. 

But I'se believe ye kindly meant it, 
I sud be laith to think ye hinted 
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented 

On my poor musie ; 
Tho' in sic phraisin' terms ye've penn'd it, 

I scarce excuse ye. 

My senses wad be in a creel, 
Should I but dare a hope to speel, 
Wi' Allan or wi' Gilbertfield, 

The braes of fame ; 
Or Ferguson, the writer chiel, 

A deathless name. 

(O Ferguso7i ! thy glorious parts 
111 suited law's dry, musty arts ! 
My curse upon your whunstane hearts, 

Ye E'nbrugh Gentry ! 
The tithe o* what ye waste at cartes. 

Wad stow'd his pantry !) 

Yet when a tale comes i' my head, 
Or lasses gie my heart a screed. 
As whyles they're like to be my dead, 

( O sad disease ! ) 
I kittle up my rustic reed ; 

It gies me ease. 

Auld Coila now may fidge fu' fain, 
She's gotten poets o' her ain, 
Chiels wha their chanters winna bain. 

But tune their lays, 
Till echoes a' resound again 

Her weel-sung praise. 

Nae poet thought her worth his while. 
To set her name in measured style ; 
She lay like some unkenned of isle 

Beside New-Holland, 
Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil 

Besouth Magellan, 

Ramsay an' famous Ferguson 
Gied Forth an' Tay a lift aboon ; 
Yarroio an' Tweed to monie a tune, 

Owre Scotland rings, 
Wliile Irioin, Lvgar, Ayr, an' Doon, 

Nae body sings. 

Th' Ilissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine, 
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu' line ! 
But, Willie, set yotn- fit to mine. 

An' cock your crest, 



We'll gar our streams and burnies shine 
Up wi' the best. 

We'll sing auld Coila'.s plains an' fells. 
Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells. 
Her banks an' braes, her dens an* dells. 

Where glorious Wallace 
Aft bure the gree, as story tells, 

Frae southern billies. 

At Wallace" name what Scottish blood 
But boils up in a spring-tide flood ! 
Oft have our fearless fathers strode 

By Wallace^ side, 
Still pressing onward, red-wat shod. 

Or glorious died. 

O sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods, 
When lintwhites chant among the buds, 
An' jinkin hares, in amorous whids. 

Their loves enjoy, 
While thro* the braes the cushat croods 

With wailfu' cry ! 

Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me 
When winds rave thro' the naked tree ; 
Or frost on hills of Ochiltree 

Are hoary grey ; 
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee, 

Dark'ning the day ! 

O Nature ! a' thy shows an' forms 
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms ! 
Whether the summer kindly warms 

Wi' life an' light. 
Or winter howls, in gusty storms. 

The lang, dark night ! 

The Muse, nae poet ever fand her. 
Till by himsel he learn'd to wander, 
Adown some trotting burn's meander. 

An' no think lang ; 
O sweet, to stray, an' pensive ponder 

A heartfelt sang I 

The warly race may drudge and drive, 
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an' strive. 
Let me fair Natures face descrive, 

And I, wi* pleasure, 
Shall let the busy, grumbling hive 

Bum o'er their treasure. 

Fareweel, * my rhyme-composing brither !* 
We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither : 
Now let us lay our heads thegither. 

In love fraternal : 
May Envy wallop in a tether. 

Black fiend, infernal ! 

While highlandmen hate tolls and taxes ; 
While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxies ; 
While terra fir ma on her axis 

Diurnal turns, 
Count on a friend, in faith and practice. 

In Robert Bums, 



POEMS. 



47 



POSTSCRIPT. 

]My meinoiy's no worth a prceu ; 

I had amaist forgotten clean, 

Ye bade me write you what they mean 

By this new-light,* 

'Bout which our herds sae aft liae been 

Maist hke to fight. 

In days when mankind Avere but callans 
At grammar^ logic, an' sic talents, 
They took nae pains their speech to baJance, 

Or rules to gi'e, 
But spak their thoughts in plain braid lallans, 

Like you or me. 

In thae auld times, they thought the moon. 
Just like a sark, or pair o' shoon. 
Wore by degrees, till her last roon, 

Gaed past their viewing, 
An' shortly after she was done, 

They gat a new ane. 

This past for certain, undisputed ; 
It ne'er cam i' their heads to doubt it, 
Till chiels gat up an' wad confute it, 

An' ca'd it wrang ; 
An' muckle din there v/as about it, 

Baith loud an' lang. 

Some herds, weel learn'd upo' the beuk, 
Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk ; 
For 'twas the auld moon turn'd a neuk, 

An' out o' sight, 
An' backlins-comin', to the leuk, 

She grew mair bright. 

This was deny'd, it was affirm'd ; 
The herds and hissels were alarm'd ; 
The rev 'rend grey-beards rav'd an' storm'd. 

That beardless laddies 
Should think they better were inform'd 

Than their auld daddies. 

Frae less to mair it gaed to sticks ; 
Frae words an' aiths to clours an* nicks ; 
An' monie a fallow gat his licks, 

Wi' hearty crunt ; 
An' some, to learn them for their tricks, 

Were hang'd an' brunt. 

This game was play'd in monie lands, 
An' auld-light caddies bure sic hands, 
That faith, the youngsters took the sands, 

Wi* nimble shanks. 

Till lairds forbade, by strict commands, 

Sic bluidy pranks. 

But new-light herds gat sic a cowe. 
Folk thought them ruin'd stick-an'-stowe, 
Till now amaist on ev'ry knowe, 

Ye'U find ane plac'd ; 



* Sec Note, p. li. 



An' some, their new-light fair avow, 

Just quite barefac'u, 

Nae doubt the auld-light jiocks are bleatin' ; 
Their zealous herds are vex'd an' sweatin' ; 
Mysel, I've even seen them greetin* 

Wi' girnin' spite, 
To hear the moon sae sadly lie'd on 

By word an' write. 

But shortly they will cowe the louns ! 
Some auld-light herds in neebor towns 
Are mind't, in things they ca' balloons. 

To tak' a flight. 
An' stay a month amang the moons 

An' see them right. 

Guid observation they will gie them ; 
An' when the auld moon's gaun to lea'e them, 
The hindmost shaird, they'll fetch it wi' them. 

Just i' their pouch. 
An' when the new-light billies see them, 

I think they'll crouch ! 

Sac, ye observe that a' this clatter 
Is naething but a ' moonshine matter ;' 
But tho' dull prose-folk Latin splatter 

In logic tulzie, 
I hope, we bardies ken some better 

Than mind sic brulzie. 



EPISTLE TO J. RANKINE, 

ENCLOSING SOME POEMS. 

O ROUGH, rude, ready-witted Rankine, 
The wale o' cocks for fun and drinkin' ! 
There's mony godly folks are thinkin'. 

Your dreams * an' tricks 
Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin', 

Straight to auld Nick's, 

Ye ha'e sae monie cracks an' cants 
And in your wicked, drucken rants. 
Ye raak' a devil o' the saunts. 

An' fill them fou ; 
And then their failings, flaws, an' wants. 
Are a' seen thio'. 

Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it ! 
That holy robe, O dinna tear it ! 
Spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it,. 

The lads in black f 
But your cui-st wit, when it comes near it, 

Rives't aif their back. 

Think, wicked sinner, wha ye're skaithing. 
It's just the hlue-gown badge an' claithing 
O' saunts ; tak that, ye lea'e them naething 
To ken them by. 



* A certain humorous dream of his was tlicn nUik 
ing a noise iu the country-side. 



48 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Frae ony uniegeaerate heathen 

Like you or I. 

I've sent you here some rhyming ware, 
A' that I bargain'd for an' mair ; 
Sae, when you hae an hour to spare,' 

I will expect 
Yon sanff,* ye'll sen't wi' cannie care, 

And no neglect. 

Tho' faith, sma' heart hae I to sing ! 
IVIy muse dow scarcely spread her wing ! 
I've play'd mysel a bonnie spring, 

An' danc'd my fill ! 
I'd better gaen and sair'd the king 

At Bunker's Hill. 

'Twas ae night lately in my fun, 

I gaed a roving wi' the gun. 

An' brought a paitrick to the grun, 

A bonnie hen. 
And, as the twilight was begun. 

Thought nane wad ken. 

^he poor wee thing was little hurt ; 
I straikit it a wee for sport. 
Ne'er thinkin' they wad fash me for't ; 

But, deil-ma care ! 
Somebody tells the poacher-court 

The hale affair. 

Some auld us'd hands had ta'en a note. 
That sic a hen had got a shot j 
I was suspected for the plot ; 

I scorn'd to lie ; 
So gat the whissle o' my groat, 

An' pay't the^^e. 

But, by my gun, o' guns the wale, 
An' by my pouther an' my hail, 
An' by my hen, an' by her tail, 

I vow an' swear ! 
The game shall pay o'er moor an' dale. 

For this, niest year. 

As soon's the clockin' time is by, 
An' the wee pouts begun to cry, 
L — d, I'se hae sportin' by an' by, 

For my gowd guinea : 
Tho' I should herd the buckskin kye 

For't, in Virginia. 

Trowth, they had meikle for to blame ! 
'Twas neither broken wing nor limb, 
But twa- three draps about the wame. 

Scarce thro' the feathers : 
An' baith a yellow George to claim, 

An' thole their blethers ! 

It pits me aye as mad's a hare ; 
So I can rhyme nor write nae mair. 
But pennyworths again is fair. 

When time's expedient : 
Meanwhile 1 am, respected Sir, 

Your most obedient. 



WRITTEN IN 



* A soitg he had promised the Author. 



FRIARS CARSE HERMITAGE, 

ON NITH-SIDE. 

Thou whom chance may hither lead. 
Be thou clad in russet weed. 
Be thou deckt in silken stole, 
Grave these counsels on thy soul. 

Life is but a day at most, 
Sprung from night, in darkness lost ; 
Hope not sunshine every hour. 
Fear not clouds will always lour. 

As youth and love with sprightly dance, 
Beneath thy morning star advance, 
Pleasure with her sii-en air 
May delude the thoughtless pair ; 
Let prudence bless enjoyment's cup, 
Then raptur'd sip, and sip it up. 

As thy day grows warm and high, 
Life's meridian flaming nigh, 
Dost thou spmn the humble vale ? 
Life's proud summits wouldst thou scale ? 
Check thy climbing step, elate, 
Evils lurk in felon wait : 
Dangers, eagle-piuion'd, bold. 
Soar around each cliffy hold, 
While cheerful peace, with linnet song, 
Chants the lowly dells among. 

As the shades of ev'ning close, 
Beck'ning thee to long repose : 
As life itself becomes disease. 
Seek the chimney-neuk of ease. 
There ruminate with sober thought. 
On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought/ 
And teach the sportive youuker's round. 
Saws of experience, sage and sound. 
Say, man's true, genuine estimate, 
The grand criterion of his fate, 
Is not, Art thou high or low ? 
Did thy fortune ebb or flow ? 
Did many talents gild thy span ? 
Or frugal nature grudge thee one ? 
Tell them, and press it on their raind, 
As thou thyself must shortly find. 
The smile or frown of awful Heav'n, 
To virtue or to vice is giv'n. 
Say, to be just, and kind, and wise. 
There solid self-enjoyment lies ; 
That foolish, selfish, faithless ways. 
Lead to the wretched, vile, and base. 

Thus resign'd and quiet, creep 
To the bed of lasting sleep ; 
Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake, 
Night, where dawn shall never break. 
Till future life, future no more. 
To light and joy the good restore, 
To light and joy unknown before. 



POEMS. 



49 



Stranger, go ! Heav'ii be thy guide 
Quod the beadsman of Nith-side. 



ODE, 

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. ■ OF 

Dweller in yon dungeon dark, 
Hangman of creation ! mark 
Who in widow-weeds a])pears. 
Laden with unhonoured years, 
Noosing with care a bursting purse, 
Baited with many a deadly curse I 

STROPHE. 

View the wlther'd beldam's face — 

Can thy keen inspection trace 

Aught of humanity's sweet melting grace? 

Not that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows, 

Pity's flood there never rose 

See those hands, ne'er stretch'd to save. 

Hands that took — but never gave. 

Keeper of Mammon's iron cbest, 

Lo, there she goes, unpltied, and unblest ; 

She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest ! 

ANTISTKOFHE. 

Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes, 

(A while forbear, ye tort'ring fiends), 

Seesc thou whose step unwilling hither bends ? 

No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper skies j 

'Tih thy trusty quondam mate, 

Dooni'd to share thy fiery fate, 

Slie, tardy, hell -ward plies. 

EPODE. 

And are they of no more avail, 
Ten thousand glitt'ring pounds a-year ? 
In other worlds can Mammon fail, 
Omnipotent as he is here ? 
O, bitter mock'ry of the pompous bier. 
While down the wretched vital part is driv'n ! 
The cave-lodg'd beggar, with a conscience clear, 
Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heav'n. 



ELEGY 



CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON, 

L. GENTLEMAN WHO HELD THE PATENT FOR 
HIS HONOURS IMMEDIATELY FROM AL- 
MIGHTY GOD ! 



But now his radiant course is run, 
For Matthew's couric was bright : 

His soiil was like the glorious sun, 
A matchless, Hea\-'iily light! 



O Death ! thou tyTant fell and bloody : 
The raeikle devil wi' a woodie 



Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie. 

O'er hurcheon hides. 

And like stock-fish come o'er his studdie 
\\'i' thy auld sides ! 

He's gane, he's gane ! he's frae us torn, 
The ae best fellow e'er was born ! 
Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel shall mourn 

By wood and wild, 
Where, haply. Pity strays forlorn, 

Frae man exil'd. 

Ye hills, near neebors o' the starns, 
That proudly cock your cresting cairns ! 
Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns, 

Where echo slumbers ! 
Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns, 

My wailing numbers; 

Mourn ilka grove the cushat kens ! 
Ye haz'lly shaws and briery dens ! 
Ye burnies, wimplin down your glens, 

Wi' toddliu' din, 
Or foaming Strang, wi' hasty stens, 

Frae lin to lin. 

Mourn little harebells o'er the lee ; 
Ye stately fox-gloves fair to see ; 
Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie 

In scented bow'rs ; 
Ye roses on your thorny tree. 

The first o' flow'rs. 

At dawn, when ev'ry grassy blade 
Droops with a diamond at his head, 
At ev'n, when beans their fi-agrance shed, 

r th' rustling gale. 
Ye maukins whiddin thro' the glade. 

Come join my wail. 

Mourn ye wee songsters o' the wood ; 
Ye grouse that crap the heather bud ; 
Ye curlews calling thro' a clud ; 

Ye whistling plover ; 
And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood ; 

He's gane for ever ! 

Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals ; 
Ye fisher herons, watching eels ; 
Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels 

Circling the lake ; 
Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels. 

Hair for his sake. 

Mourn, clam'ring craiks at close o' day, 
'Mang fields o' flow'ring clover gay ; 
And when ye wing your annual way 

Frae our cauld shore, 
Tell thae far wai-lds, wha lies in clay, 

Wham we deplore. 

Ye houlets, frae your ivy bow'r. 
In some auld tree, or eldritch tow'r. 
What time the moon, wi' silent glow r, 
Sets up her horn. 



50 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Wail thro* the dreary midnight hour 

Till waukrife morn I 

O rivers, forests, hills, and plains ! 
Oft have ye heard my canty strains : 
But now, what else for me remains 

But tales of woe ; 
An' frae my een the drapping rains 

Maun ever flow. 

Mourn, spring, thou darling of the year ! 
Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear : 
Thou, simmer, while each corny spear 

Shoots up its head, 
Thy gay, green, flow'ry tresses shear, 

For him that's dead ! 

Thou, autumn, wi' thy yellow hair, 
In grief thy sallow mantle tear ! 
Thou, winter, hurling thro' the air 

The roaring blast, 
Wide o'er the naked world declare 

The worth we've lost ! 

Mourn him, thou sun, great source of light ! 
Mourn, empress of the silent night ! 
And you, ye twinkling starnies bright, 

]\Iy Matthew mourn ! 
For through your orbs he's ta'en his flight, 
Ne'er to return. 

O Hender&on ! the man, the brother ! 
And art thou gone, and gone for ever ! 
And hast thou cross'd that unknown river, 

Life's dreary bound ! 
Like thee, where shall I find another, 

The world around ! 

Go to your sculptm'd tombs, ye Great, 
In a' the tinsel trash o' state ! 
But by the honest turf I'll wait. 

Thou man of worth ! 
And weep the ae best fellow's fate 

E'er lay in earth 



THE EPITAPH. 

Stop, passenger ! my story's brief; 

And truth I shall relate, man : 
I tell nae common tale o' grief. 

For Matthew was a great man. 

If thou uncommon merit hast. 

Yet spurn'd at fortune's door, man ; 

A look of pity hither cast. 

For Matthew was a poor man. 

If thou a noble sodger art, 

That passest by this grave, man ; 

There mouldei-s here a gallant heart, 
For Matthew was a brave man. 

If thou on men, their works and ways, 
Canst throw uncommon light, man ; 



Here lies wha weel had won thy praise, 
For Matthew was a bright man. 

K thou at friendship's sacred ca', 
Wad life itself resign, man ; 

Thy sympathetic tear maun fa', 
For Matthew was a kind man. 

If thou art staunch without a stain. 
Like the unchanging blue, man ; 

This was a kinsman o' thy ain, 
For Matthew was a true man. 

If thou hast wit, and fun, and fire, 
And ne'er guid wine did fear, man ; 

This was thy billie, dam, and sire. 
For Matthew was a queei* man. 

If ony whiggish whingin sot, 

To blame poor Matthew dare, man ; 

May dool and sorrow be his lot, 
For Matthew was a rare man. 



LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN 
OF SCOTS, 

ON THE APPKOACH OF SPRING.. 

Now Nature hangs her mantle green 

On every blooming tree. 
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white 

Out o'er the grassy lea : 
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams, 

And glads the azure skies ; 
But nought can glad the weary wight 

That fast in durance lies. 

Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, 

Aloft on dewy wing ; 
The merle, in his noontide bow'r, 

Makes woodland echoes ring ; 
The mavis mild wi' many a note, 

Sings drowsy day to rest : 
In love and freedom they rejoice, 

Wi' care nor thrall opprest. 

Now blooms the lily by the bank. 

The primrose down the brae ; 
The hawthorn's budding in the glen, 

And milk-white is the slae : 
The meanest hind in fair Scotland, 

May rove their sweets amang ; 
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland, 

Maun lie in prison Strang. 

I was the Queen o* bonnie France, 

Where happy I hae been ; 
Fu' lightly raise I in the morn. 

As blithe lay down at e'en : 
And I'm the sovereign of Scotland, 

And mony a traitor there ; 
Yet here I lie in foreign bands, 

And never ending care. 



POEMS. 



bl 



But as for thee, thou false woman, 

My sister and my fae, 
Grim vengeance, yet, shall whet a sword 

That thro' thy soul shall gae : 
The weeping blood in woman's breast 

Was never known to thee ; 
Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe 

Frae woman's pitying e'e. 

My son ! my son ! may kinder stars 

Upon thy fortune shine ; 
And may those pleasures gild thy reign, 

That neer wad blink on mine ! 
God keep thee frae thy mother's faes, 

Or turn their hearts to thee ; 
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend. 

Remember him for me ! 

O ! soon, to me, may summer-suns 

Nae mair light up the morn ! 
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds 

Wave o'er the yellow corn ! 
And in the narrow house o' death 

Let winter round me rave ; 
And the next flow'rs that deck the spring. 

Bloom on my peaceful grave. 



TO ROBERT GRAHAM, Esq. 

OF FINTRA. 

Late crippled of an arm, and now a leg. 
About to beg a pass for leave to beg ; 
Dull, listless, teas'd, dejected, and deprest, 
(Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest) ; 
Will generous Graham list to his poet's wail ? 
(It soothes poor misery, hearkening to her 

tale), 
And hear him curse the light he first survey'd, 
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade ? 

Thou, Nature, partial Nature, I arraign ; 
Of thy caprice maternal I complain. 
The lion and the bull thy care have found, 
One shakes the forest, and one spurns the 

ground : 
Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell, 
Th' envenom'd wasp, victorious, guards his cell 
Thy minions, kings defend, control, devour. 
In all th' omnipotence of rule and power. — . 
Foxes and statesmen, subtile wiles ensure ; 
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure ; 
Toads with their poison, doctors with their 
drug, [suu^ 

The priest and hedge-hog, in their robes arc 
Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts, [darts. 
Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and 

But Oh ! thou bitter step-mother and hard. 
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child — the Bard ! 
A thing unteachable in world's skill. 
And half an idiot too, more helpless still. 
No heels to bear him from the opening dun ; 
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun ; 



No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn, 
And those, alas ! not Araalthea's horn : 
No nerves olfactory. Mammon's trusty cur, 
Clad in rich dulness' comfortable fur. 
In naked feeling, and in aching pride. 
He bears th' unbroken blast from every side ; 
Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart, 
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart. 

Critics — appall'd, I venture on the name. 
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame ; 
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes j 
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose. 

Hjs heart by causeless, wanton malice wrung, 
By blockheads' daring into madness stung ; 
His well-won bays, than life itself more dear, 
By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must 

wear; 
Foil'd, bleeding, tortur'd, in the unequal strife. 
The hapless poet flounders on through life. 
Till fled each hope that once his bosom fired. 
And fled each muse that glorious once inspired, 
Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age. 
Dead, even resentment, for his injured page. 
He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's 

rage ! 

So, by some hedge, the generous steed de- 
ceased. 
For half-starv'd snarling curs a dainty feast ; 
By toil and famine wore to skin and bone. 
Lies senseless of each tugging bitch's son. 

dulness ! portion of the truly blest ! 
Calm shelter'd haven of eternal rest ! 

Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce extremes 
Of fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams. 
If mantling high she fills the golden cup. 
With sober selfish ease they sip it up ; [serve. 
Conscious the bounteous meed they well de- 
They ouly wonder ' some folks' do not starve. 
The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog, 
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog. 
When disappointment snaps the clue of hope, 
And thro' disastrous night they darkling grope, 
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear, 
And JAist conclude ' that fools are fortune's care.* 
So, heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks, 
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox. 

Not so the idle muses' mad-cap train, 
Not such the workings of their moon-struck 

brain ; 
In equanimity they never dwell, 
By turns in soaring heaven, or vaulted hell. 

1 dread thee, fate, relentless and severe, 
With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear j 
Already one strong hold of hope is lost, 
Gkncairn, the truly noble, lies in dust ; 
(Fled, like the sun eclips'd as noon appears, 
And left us darkling in a world of tears) : 

O ! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pray'r ! 
Fiyitra, my other stay, long bless and spare ! 



52 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Thro' a loug life his hopes and wishes crown, 
And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down ! 
May hliss domestic smooth his private path ; 
Give energy to life ; and soothe his latest breath, 
With inaiiy a filial teai- circling the bed of 
death ! 



LAMENT FOR JAMES EARL 
OF GLENCAIRN. 

The wind blew hollow frae the hills, 

By fits the sun's departing beam 
Look'd on the fading yellow woods 

That wav'd o'er Lugar's winding stream : 
Beneath a craigy steep, a bard, 

Laden with years and meikle pain. 
In loud lament bewail'd his lord. 

Whom death had all untimely ta'en. 

He lean'd him to an ancient aik, 

Whose trunk was mould'ring down with 
years ; 
His locks were bleached white wi' time, 

His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears ! 
And as he touch'd his trembling harp, 

And as he tun'd his doleful sang, 
The winds, lamenting thro' their caves. 

To echo bore the notes alang. 

" Ye scatter'd birds that faintly sing, 

The relics of the vernal quire ! 
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds 

The honours of the aged year ! 
A few short months, and glad and gay, 

Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e ; 
But nocht in all revolving time 

Can gladness bring again to me. 

" I am a bending aged tree, 

That long has stood the wind and rain ; 
But now has come a cruel blast, 

And my last hald of earth is gane : 
Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring, 

Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom j 
But I maun lie before the storm, 

And ithers plant them in my room. 

" I've seen sae mony changefu' years, 

On earth I am a stranger grown j 
I wander in the ways of men. 

Alike unknowing and unknown : 
Unheard, unpltied, unrelieved, 

I bear alane my lade o' care, 
For silent, low, on beds of dust. 

Lie a' that would my sorrows share. 

*' And last, (the sum of a' my griefs) .' 

My noble master lies in clay ; 
The flow'r amang our barons bold, 

His country's pride, his country's stay : 
In weary being now I pine, 

For a' the life of life is dead, 
And hope has left my aged ken, 

On forward wing for ever fled. 



" Awake thy last sad voice, my harp ! 

The voice of woe and wild despair ! 
Awake, resound thy latest lay, 

Then sleep in silence evermair ! 
And thou, my last, best, only friend, 

That fillest an untimely tomb, 
Accept this tribute from the bard 

Thou brought from fortune's mirkest gloom 

" In poverty's low barren vale. 

Thick mists, obscure, involv'd me round j 
Tho' oft I turn'd the wistful eye, 

Nae ray of fame was to be found : 
Thou found'st me like the morning sun 

That melts the fogs in limpid air, 
The friendless bard and rustic song, 

Became alike thy fostering care. 

" O ! why has worth so short a date ? 

While villains ripen grey with time ! 
Must thou, the noble, gen'rous, great. 

Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime ! 
Why did I live to see that day? 

A day to me so full of woe ! 
O ! had I met the mortal shaft 

Which laid my benefactor low ! 

" The bridegroom may forget the bride 

Was made his wedded wife yestreen ; 
The monarch may forget the crown 

That on his head an hour has been ; 
The mother may forget the child 

That smiles sae sweetly on her knee ; 
But I'll remember thee, Glencalrn, 

And a' that thou hast done for me I" 



LINES, 

SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFORD, OF WHITEFORDv 
BART. WITH THE FOREGOING POEM. 

Thou, who thy honour as thy God rever'st. 
Who, save thy mind's reproachy nought earthly 

fear'st. 
To thee this votive offering I impart, 
" The tearful tribute of a broken heart." 
The friend thou valued'st, I the patron lov'd ; 
His worth, his honour, all the world approv'd. 
We'll mourn till we too go as he Is gone, 
And tread the dreary path to that dark world 

unknown. 



TAM O' SHANTER: 



A TALE. 



Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke. 

Gau'in Douglas. 



When chapman billies leave the street. 
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet, 



POEMS. 



53 



As market-days are wearing late, 
All' folk be^in to tak the gate ; 
While we sit bousing at the nappy, 
An' gettin' fou and unco happy, 
We think na on the lang Scots miles, 
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles. 
That lie between us and our hame, 
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame. 
Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 

This truth fand honest Tarn o' Shunter, 
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, 
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses, 
For honest men and bonny lasses). 

O Ta7n ! had'st thou but been sae wise, 
As ta'en thy ain wife Kates advice ! 
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, 
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum ; 
That frae November till October, 
Ae market-day thou was na sober ; 
That ilka melder, wi' the millei'. 
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ; 
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on. 
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on ; 
That at the L — d's house, ev'n on Sunday, 
Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday. 
She prophesy'd, that late or soon. 
Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon 
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, 
By AUowat/'s auld haunted kirk. 

Ah, gentle dames ! it gars me greet, 
To think how mony counsels sweet, 
How mony lengthen'd sage advices, 
The husband frae the wife despises ! 

But to our tale : Ae market night, 
Ta)n had got planted unco right j 
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, 
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely ; 
And at his elbow, souter Johnny, 
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony ; 
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither ; 
They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter ; 
And aye the ale was growing better : 
The landlady and Tam grew gracious, 
Wi' favours, secret, sweet, and precious ; 
The souter tauld his queerest stories ; 
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus : 
The storm without might rair and rustle, 
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle. 

^ Care, mad to see a man sae happy, 
|E'en drown'd himself amang the nappy ; 
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure. 
The nnnutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure : 
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious ! 

But plea^sures are like poppies spread. 
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed ! 
Or like the snow-falls in the river, 
A moment white — then melts for ever ; 



Or like the borealis race. 

That flit ere you can point their place ; 

Or like the rainbow's lovely form 

Evanishing amid the storm. — 

Nae man can tether time or tide ; 

The hour approaclies Tam maun ride ; 

That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, 

That dreary hour he mounts his beast in; 

And sic a night he taks the road in. 

As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last ; 
The rattlin' showers rose on the blast : 
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd ; 
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd ; 
That night, a child might understand, 
The deil had business on his hand. 

Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg — 
A better never lifted leg — 
7am skelpit on thro' dub and mire. 
Despising wind, and rain, and fire ; 
Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet ; 
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet ; 
Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, 
Lest bogles catch him unawares ; 
Kirk-Allowaij was drawing nigh, 
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry — 

By this time he was cross the ford, 
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd ; 
And past the birks and meikle stane, 
Whare drunken Charlie brak 's neck-bane ; 
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn, 
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn ; 
And near the thorn, aboon the well, 
Whare Plunge's mither hanged hersel. — 
Before him Doon pours all his floods j 
The doubling storm roars thro' the woods ; 
The lightnings flash from pole to pole ; 
Near and more near the thunders roll j 
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees, 
Kirh-AUoway seem'd in a bleeze ; 
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing, 
And loud resounded mirth and dancing — 

Inspiring bold John Sarleycorn ! 
What dangers thou canst make us scorn ! 
Wi' tippeuny, we fear nae evil ; 
Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil. — 
The swats sae ream'd in Tamviie's noddle, 
Fair play, he cared na deils a boddle. 
But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd. 
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd, 
She ventured forvvard on the light ; 
And, vow ! Tam saw an unco sight ! 
Warlocks and witches in a dance ; 
Nae cotillion brent new frae France, 
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels. 
Put life and mettle in their heels. 
A winnock-bunker in the east, 
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast ; 
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, 
To gie them music was his charge : 
He screw'd his pipes and gart them skirl, 
Till roof and rafters a' did dirk — 



54i 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Coffins stood round like open presses, 
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses ; 
And by some devilish cantrip slight, 
Each in its cauld hand held a light, — 
By which heroic Tarn was able 
To note upon the haly table, 
A murderer's banes in gibbet aims ; 
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns : 
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, 
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape ; 
Five tomahawks, wi' blade red-rusted ; 
Five scymitars wi' murder crusted ; 
A garter, which a babe had strangled ; 
A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 
Whom his ain son o' life bereft, 
The grey hairs yet stack to the heft ; 
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu* 
Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'. 

As Tammie glowr'd, amaz'd and curious, 
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious : 
The piper loud and louder blew ; 
The dancers quick and quicker flew ; 
They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit, 
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, 
And coost her duddies to the wark. 
And llnket at it in her sark ! 

Now Tarn, O Tarn ! had they been queans 
A' plump an' strapping, in their teens ; 
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, 
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen ! 
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair. 
That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, 
I wad hae gi'en them aflf my hurdles ! 
For ae blink o' the bonnie hurdles ! 

But wlther'd beldams, auld and droll, 
Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, 
Lowping and flinging on a crummock, 
I wonder didna turn thy stomach. 

But Tarn kenn'd what was what fu' brawlle, 
There was ae winsome wench and walie, 
That night enlisted in the core, 
(Lang after kenn'd on Carrick shore ! 
For mony a beast to dead she shot, 
And perish'd mony a bonnie boat, 
And shook baith raeikle corn and bear. 
And kept the country side in fear), 
Her cutty-sark, o' Paisley harn. 
That while a lassie she had worn, 
In longitude though sorely scanty, 
It was her best, and she was vauntie. — 
Ah ! little kenn'd thy reverend grannie. 
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, 
Wi' twa pund Scots, ('twas a' her riches), 
Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches ! 

But here my muse her wing maun cour ; 
Sic flights are for beyond her pow'r ; 
To sing how Nannie lap and flang, 
(A souple jade she was and Strang) 
And how Tarn stood, like ane bewltch'd. 
And thought his very een enrich'd : 



Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain, 
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main , 
Till first ae caper, syne anlther. 
Tarn tint his reason a' theglther, 
And roars out, " Weel done, Cutty-sark !" 
And in an instant all was dark ; 
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied. 
When out the hellish legion sallied. 

As bees blzz out wi' angry fyke. 
When plundering herds assail their byke ; 
As open pussie's mortal foes. 
When, pop ! she starts before their nose ; 
As eager runs the market crowd. 
When " Catch the thief!" resounds aloud ; 
So Maggie runs, the witches follow, 
Wi' monie an eldritch screech and hollow. 

Ah, Tarn! Ah, Tarn! thou'U get thy falrin. 
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin ! 
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin ! 
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman ! 
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 
And win the key-stane * of the brig ; 
There at them thou thy tail may toss, 
A running stream they dare na cross. 
But ere the key-stane she could make. 
The fient a tale she had to shake ! 
For Nannie, far before the rest. 
Hard upon noble Maggie prest, 
And flew at Tarn wi' furious ettle ; 
But little wist she Maggie's mettle — 
Ae spring brought afi" her master hale. 
But left behind her ain grey tail : 
The carlin claught her by the rump. 
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. 

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read. 
Ilk man and mother's son take heed : 
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd. 
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind. 
Think ye may buy the joys o'er dear. 
Remember Tain 6" Shanter's mare. 



ON SEEING A WOUNDED 
HARE LIMP BY ME, 

WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT AT. 

Inhuman man ! curse on thy baru'rous art, 
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye : 
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, 

Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart ! 

Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field. 
The bitter little that of life remains : 



* It is a well known fact, that witches, or any evil 
spirits, have no power to follov/ a poor wight any far- 
ther than the middle of the next running stream. — It 
may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted 
traveller, that when he falls in with bogles, whatever 
danger may be in his going forward, there is much 
more hazard m turning back. 



POEMS. 



55 



No more the thickening brakes and verdant 
plains, 
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. 

Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted 
rest, 

No more of rest, but now thy dying bed ! 

The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head , 
The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest. 

Oft as by winding Nith, I musing wait 
The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn, 
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, 

And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy 
hapless fate. 



ADDRESS TO THE SHADE 
OF THOMSON, 

ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM, ROX- 
BURGHSHIRE, WITH BAYS. 

While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood, 

Unfolds her tender mantle green. 
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood, 

Or tunes Eolian strains between : 

While Summer, with a matron grace. 
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade, 

Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace 
The progress of the spiky blade ; 

While Autumn, benefactor kind. 

By Tweed erects his aged head, 
And sees, with self-approving mind. 

Each creature on his bounty feed : 

While maniac Winter rages o'er 

The hills whence classic Yarrow flows. 

Rousing the turbid torrent's roar, 

Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows : 

So long, sweet Poet of the year. 

Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won ; 
While Scotia, with exulting tear. 

Proclaims that Thomson was her son. 



EPITAPHS. 



ON 



A CELEBRATED RULING 
ELDER. 



Here souter John in death does sleep ; 

To hell, if he's gane thither, 
Satan, gie him thy gear to keep, 

He'll haud it weel thegither. 



ON A NOISY POLEMIC. 

Below thir stanes lie Jamie's banes : 

O Death, its my opinion. 
Thou ne'er took such a bleth'rin bitch 

Into thy dark dominion ! 



ON WEE JOHNNY. 

Hicjacet wee Johnny. 

Whoe'er thou art, O reader, know. 
That death has murder 'd Johnny ! 

An' here his bodi/ lies fu* low 

For saul, he ne'er had ony. 



FOR THE AUTHOR'S FATHER. 

O ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains. 
Draw near with pious rev'rence and attend ! 

Here lie the loving husband's dear remains. 
The tender father and the gen'rous friend. 

The pitying heart that felt for human woe ; 
The dauntless heart that fear'd no human 
pride ; 
The friend of man, to vice alone a foe ; 

" For ev'n his failings leaned to virtue's 
side."* 



FOR R. A. Esq. 

Know thou, O stranger to the fame 
Of this much lov'd, much honour'd name ! 
(For none that knew him need be told) 
A warmer heart death ne'er made cold. 



FOR G. H. Esq. 

The poor man weeps — here G » sleeps. 

Whom canting wi-etches blara'd : 

But with such as he, where'er he be, 
May I be saved or d d I 



A BARD'S EPITAPH. 

Is there a whim-inspired fool, 
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, 
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool. 

Let him draw near ; 
And owre this grassy heap sing dool. 

And drap a tear. 

Is there a bard of rustic song. 
Who, noteless, steals the crowds among. 



» Goldsmith. 



56 

That weekly this area throng, 

O, pass not by ! 
But, with a fratei'-feeling strong, 



BURNS' WORKS. 



eiing strong. 
Here heave a sigh. 



Is there a man, whose judgment clear, 
Can others teach the course to steer, 
Yet runs, himself, life's mad career. 

Wild as the wave ; 
Here pause — and, through the starting tear, 

Survey this grave. 

The poor inhabitant below, 
Was quick to learn and wise to know, 
And keenly felt the friendly glow, 

And softer flame, 
But thoughtless follies laid him low. 

And stain'd his name ! 

Reader, attend — whether thy soul 
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, 
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole. 

In low pursuit ; 
Know, prudent, cautious, self-control, 

Is wisdom's root. 



ON THE LATE 

CAPTAIN GROSE'S 

PEREGRINATIONS THROUGH SCOTLAND, COL- 
LECTING THE ANTIQUITIES OF THAT KINGDOM. 

Hear, Land o' Cakes, and brither Scots, 
Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's ; 
If there's a hole in a' your coats, 

I rede you tent it : 
A chield's amaug you, taking notes, 

And, faith, he'll prent it. 

If in your bounds ye chance to light 
Upon a fine, fat, fodgel wight, 
O' stature short, but genius bright. 

That's he, mark weel — 
And wow ! he has an unco slight 

O' cauk and keel. 

By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin,* 
Or kirk, deserted by its riggin. 
It's ten to ane ye'll find him snug in 

Some eldritch part, 
Wi' deils, they say, L — d safe's ! colleaguin' 
At some black art 

Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha' or chamer, 
Ye gipsey-gang that deal in glamor. 
And you deep -read in hell's black grammar, 

Warlocks and witches j 
Ye'll quake at his conjuring hammer, 

Ye midnight bitches. 

It's tauld he was a sodger bi'ed. 
And ane wad rather fa'n than fled ; 



» Vide his Antiquities of Scotland. 



But now he's quat the spurtle blade, 

And dog-skin wallet. 

And ta'en the — Antiquarian trade, 

I think they call it. 

He has a fouth o' auld nick nackets : 
Rusty airn caps and jiuglin' jackets,* 
Wad had the Lothians three in tackets, 

A towmont guid : 
And parritch pats, and auld saut-backets, 

Before the Flood. 

Of Eve's first fire he has a cinder ; 
Auld Tubal Cain's fire-shool and fender ; 
That which distinguished the gender 

O' Balaam's ass ; 
A broom-stick o' the witch of Endor, 

Weel shod wi' brass. 

Forbye, he'll shape you aJBF, fu' gleg. 
The cut of Adam's philibeg ; 
The knife that uicket Abel's craig, 

He'll prove you fully, 
It was a faulding jocteleg, 

Or lang-kail guUle. — 

But wad ye see him in his glee, 
For meikle glee and fun has he. 
Then set him down, and twa or three 

Guid fellows wi' him ; 
And port, O port ! Shine thou a wee. 

And then ye'll see him ! 

Now, by the pow'rs o' verse and prose ! 
Thou art a dainty chiel, O Grose ! — 
Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose. 

They sair misca' thee ; 
I'd take the rascal by the nose. 

Wad say, Shame fa' thee ! 



TO MISS CRUIKSHANKS, 

A VERY YOUNG LADY, WRITTEN ON THE BLANK 
LEAF OF A BOOK, PRESENTED TO HER BY 
THE AUTHOR. 

Beauteous rose-bud, young and gay, 
Blooming on thy early May, 
Never may'st thou, lovely flow'r, 
Chilly shrink in sleety show'r ! 
Never Boreas' hoary path, 
Never Eurus' pois'nous breath, 
Never baleful stellar lights, 
Taint thee with untimely blights ! 
Never, never reptile thief , 
Riot on thy virgin leaf! 
Nor even Sol too fiercely view 
Thy bosom blushing still with dew ! 

May'st thou long, sweet crimson gem. 
Richly deck thy native stem ; 



* Vide his treatise on Ancient Armour arid Weapons. 



POEMS. 



57 



Till some ev'ning, sober, calm, 
Dropping dews, and breathing balm, 
While all around the woodland rings, 
And ev'ry bird thy requiem sings j 
Thou, amid the dirgeful sound, 
Shed thy dying honours round, 
And resign to parent earth 
The loveliest form she e'er gave birth. 



ON READING IN A NEWSPAPER, THE DEATH OF 

JOHN M'LEOD, Esq. 

BROTHER TO A YOUNG LADY, A PARTICULAR 
FRIEND OF THE AUTHOr's. 

Sad thy tale, thou idle page, 

And rueful thy alarms : 
Death tears the brother of her love 

From Isabella's arms. 

Sweetly deck'd with pearly dew 

The morning rose may blow ; 
But, cold successive noontide blasts 

May lay its beauties low. 

Fair on Isabella's morn 

The sun propitious smil'd ; 
But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds 

Succeeding hopes beguil'd. 

Fate oft tears the bosom chorda 

That nature finest strung : 
So Isabella's heart was form'd. 

And so that heart was rung. 

Dread Omnipotence, alone. 

Can heal the wound he gave ; 
Can point the brimful grief-worn eyes 

To scenes beyond the grave. 

Virtuous blossoms there shall blow. 

And fear no withering blast ; 
There Isabella's spotless worth 

Shall happy be at last. 



THE HUMBLE PETITION OF 
BRUAR-WATER.* 

TO THE NOBLE DUKE OF ATHOLE. 

My Lord, I knov,r your noble ear 

Woe ne'er assails in vain ; 
Embolden'd thus, I beg you'll hear 

Your humble slave complain, 
How saucy Phoebus' scorching beams, 

In flaming summer-pride, 



* Bruar Falls, in Atholc, are exceedingly picturesque 
and beautiful ; but their effect ismuck impaired by the 
want of trees aud shrubs. 



Dry-withering, waste my foaming streams, 
And drink my crystal tide. 

The lightly-jumpin glowrin ti'outs, 

That thro' my waters play, 
If, in their random, wanton spouts, 

They near the margin stray ; 
If, hapless chance ! they linger lang, 

I'm scorching up so shallow. 
They're left the whitening stanes amang, 

In gasping death to wallow. 

Last day I grat, wi' spite and teen, 

As poet B came by. 

That, to a bard I should be seen, 

Wi' half my channel dry : 
A panegyric rhyme, I ween. 

Even as I was he shor'd me : 
But had I in my glory been. 

He, kneeling, wad ador'd me. 

Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks, 

In twisting strength I rin ; 
There, high my boiling torrent smokes, 

Wild-roaring o'er a linn : 
Enjoying large each spring and well 

As nature gave them me, 
I am, although I say't mysel. 

Worth gaun a mile to see. 

Would then my noble master please 

To grant my highest wishes. 
He'll shade my banks wi' tow'ring trees, 

And bonnie spreading bushes ; 
Delighted doubly then, my Lord, 

You'll wander on my banks, 
And listen mony a grateful bird 

Return you tuneful thanks. 

The sober laverock, warbling wild, 

Shall to the skies aspire ; 
The gowdspink, music's gayest child, 

Shall sweetly join the choir : 
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, 

The mavis wild and mellow ; 
The robin pensive autumn cheer. 

In all her locks of yellow. 

This too, a covert shall ensure, 

To shield them from the storm ; 
And coward maukin sleep secure. 

Low in her grassy form. 
Here shall the shepherd make his seat, 

To weave his crown of flowers ; 
Or find a shelt'ring safe retreat. 

From prone descending showers. 

And here, by sweet endearing stealth. 

Shall meet the loving pair. 
Despising worlds with all their wealth 

As empty idle care : 
The flow'rs shall vie in all their charms 

The hour of heav'n to grace, 
And birks extend their fragrant arras 

To screen the dear embrace. 



28 



58 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Here, haply too, at vernal dawn, 

Some musing bard may stray, 
And eye the smoking, dewy lawn, 

And misty mountain, grey ; 
Or, by the reaper's nightly beam. 

Mild chequering through the trees. 
Rave to my darkly dashing stream. 

Hoarse-swelling on the breeze. 

Let lofty firs, and ashes cool. 

My lowly banks o'erspread, 
And view, deep-bending in the pool. 

Their shadows' watery bed ! 
Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest, 

My craggy clitfs adorn ; 
And, for the little songster's nest, 

The close embow'ring thorn. 

So may old Scotia's darling hope, 

Your little angel band, 
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop 

Their honour'd native land ! 
So may thro' Albion's farthest ken, 

To social-flowing glasses. 
The grace be — " Athole's honest men, 

And Athole's bonnie lasses !" 



ON SCARING SOME WATER- 
FOWL, 

IN LOCH-TURIT ; 

A WILD SCENE AMONG THE HIILS OP 
OCHTERTYRE. 

Why, ye tenants of the lake, 
For me your watery haunt forsake ? 
Tell me, fellow-creatures, why 
At my presence thus you fly ? 
Why disturb your social joys, 
Parent, filial, kindred ties ? — 
Common friend to you and me, 
Nature's gifts to all are free : 
Peaceful keep your dimpling wave, 
Busy feed, or wanton lave ; 
Or, beneath the sheltering rock. 
Bide the surging billow's shock. 

Conscious, blushing for our race, 
Soon, too soon, your fears I trace. 
Man, your proud usurping foe, 
Would be lord of all below ; 
Plumes himself in Freedom's pride, 
Tyrant stern to all beside. 

The eagle, from the cliffy brow, 
Marking you his prey below. 
In his breast no pity dwells. 
Strong necessity compels. 
But man, to whom alone is giv'u 
A ray direct from pitying heav'n. 
Glorious in his heart humane — 
And creatures for his pleasure slain. 



In these savage, liquid plains. 
Only known to wand'ring swains, 
Where the mossy riv'let strays ; 
Far from human haunts and ways ; 
All on nature you depend. 
And life's poor season peaceful spend. 

Or, if man's superior might. 
Dare invade your native right, 
On the lofty ether borne, 
Man with all his pow'rs you scorn : 
Swiftly seek, on clanging wings. 
Other lakes and other springs ; 
And the foe you cannot brave, 
Scorn at least to be his slave. 



WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL 

OVER THE CHIMNEY-PIECE IN THE PARLOUR 
OF THE INN AT KENMORE, TAYMOUTH. 

Admiring Nature in her wildest grace. 
These northern scenes with weary feet I trace ; 
O'er many a winding dale and painful steep, 
Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep, 
My savage journey, curious, I pursue, 
Till fam'd Breadalbane opens to my view — 
The meeting clifs each deep-sunk glen divides. 
The woods, wild-scatter'd, clothe their ample 

sides ; 
Th' outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the 

hills, 
The eye with wonder and amazement fills ; 
The Tay meand'ring sweet in infant pride. 
The palace rising on his verdant side. 
The lawns wood-fringed in Natures native taste; 
The hillocks dropt in Nature's careless haste ! 
The arches striding o'er the new-born stream ; 
The village, glittering in the moontide beam- 



Poetic ardours in my bosom swell, 
Lone wandering by the hermit's mossy cell : 
The sweeping theatre of hanging woods ; 
The incessant roar of headlong tumbliug 
floods — 



Here Poesy might wake her heav'n-taught lyre, 
And look through nature with creative firej 
Here, to the wrongs of fate half reconcil'd. 
Misfortune's lighten'd steps might wander 

wild ; 
And disappointment, in these lonely bounds. 
Find balm to soothe her bitter rankling wounds : 
Here heart-struck Grief might heaven-ward 

stretch her scan, 
And injur'd worth forget and pardon man. 



POEMS. 
WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL, 

STANDING BY THE FALL OF FYERS, NEAR 
LOCH-NESS. 



59 



Among the heathy hills and ragged woods 
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods ; 
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds, 
Where, thro' a shapeless breach, his stream 
resounds. 

As high in air the bursting torrents flow, 
As deep recoiling surges foam below. 
Prone down the rock the whitening sheet de- 
scends. 
And viewless echo's ear, astonish'd, rends. 
Dim-seen, through rising mists, and ceaseless 

showers. 
The hoary cavern, wide-surrounding lowers. 
Still thro' the gap the struggling river toils, 
And still below, the horrid caldron boils — 



ON THE BIRTH OF A 

POSTHUMOUS CHILD, 

BORN IN PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF 
FAMILY DISTRESS. 

Sweet Flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love, 

And ward o' mony a prayer. 
What heart o' stane wad thou na move, 

Sae helpless, sweet, and fair ! 

November hirples o'er the lea, 

Chill on thy lovely form ; 
And gane, alas ! the shelt'ring tree. 

Should shield thee frae the storm. 

May He who gives the rain to pour. 

And wings the blast to blaw. 
Protect thee frae the driving shower. 

The bitter frost and snaw ! 

May He, the friend of woe and want, 
Who heals life's various stounds. 

Protect and guard the mother plant. 
And heal her cruel wounds ! 

But late she flourish'd, rooted fast, 

Fair on the summer morn : 
Now feebly bends she in the blast, 

Unshelter'd and forlorn. 

Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem, 

Unscath'd by ruffian hand ! 
And from thee many a parent stem 

Arise to deck our land ! 



THE WHISTLE 

A BALLAD. 



As the authentic prose history of the Whistle is cu- 
rious, I shall here give it.— In the train of Anne of 
Denmark, when she came to Scotland with our James 
the Sixth, there came over also a Danish gentleman of 
gigantic stature and great prowess, and a matchless 
champion of Bacchus. He had a little cBoiiy Whistle 
which at the commencement of the orgies he laid on 
the table, and whoever was last able to blow it, every 
body else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, 
was to carry off the Whistle as a trophy of victory. 
The Dane produced credentials of his victories without 
a single defeat, at the courts of Copenhagen, Stock- 
holm, Moscow, Warsaw, and several of the petty 
courts in Germany ; and challenged the Scots Baccha- 
nalians to the alternative of trying his prowess, or else 
of acknowledging their inferiority. After many over- 
throws on the part of the Scots, the Dane was encoun- 
tered by Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton, ancestor of 
the present worthy baronet of that name ; who, after 
three days and three nights' hard contest, left the 
Scandinavian under the table. 

And blew on the Whistle his requiem shrill. 

Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert before mentioned, af- 
terwards lost the Whistle to Walter Riddel, of Glen- 
riddel, who had married a sister of Sir Walter's. — On 
Friday, the 16th of October 1790, at Friars-Carse, the 
Whistle was once more contended for, as related in the 
ballad, by the present Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwel- 
ton ; Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, lineal de- 
scendant and representative of Walter Riddel, who 
won the Whistle, and in whose family it had conti- 
nued; and Alexander Ferguson, Esq. of Craigdarroch, 
likewise descended of the great Sir Robert; which last 
gentleman carried off the hard-won honours of the fields 



I SING of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth, 
I sing of a Whistle, the pride of the North, 
Was brought to the court of our good Scottish 

king, 
And long with this Whistle all Scotland shall 



Old Loda,* still rueing the arm of Fingal, 
The god of the bottle sends down from his 

hall— 
" This Whistle's your challenge, to Scotland 

get o'er. 
And drink them to hell, Sir ! or ne'er see me 

more !" 

Old poets have sung, and old chronicles tell, 
What champions ventured, what champions 

fell; 
The son of great Loda was conqueror still. 
And blew on the Whistle his requiem shrill. 

Till Robert, the lord of the Cairn and the 
Scaur, 
Unmatch'd at the bottle, unconquer'd in war, 
He drank his poor god-ship as deep as the sea, 
No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he. 

Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has 
gain'd; 
Which now in his house has for ages remain'd j 



• See Ossian's Caricthura. 



60 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Till three noble chieftains, and all of his blood, 
The jovial contest again have renew'd. 

Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear 

of flaw ; 
Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and 

law ; 
And trusty Glenriddel, so skill'd in old coins ; 
And gallant Sir Robert, deep read in old wines. 

Craigdarroch began, with a tongue smooth 
as oil, 
Desiring Glenriddel to yield up the spoil ; 
Or else he would muster the heads of the clan. 
And once more, in claret, try which was the 



*' By the gods of the ancients," Glenriddel 
replies, 
" Before I surrender so glorious a prize, 
1*11 conjure the ghost of the great Rorie More,* 
And bumper his horn with him twenty times 
o'er." 

Su' Robert, a soldier, no speech would pre- 
tend. 

But he ne'er turn'd his back on his foe — or his 
friend. 

Said, Toss down the Whistle, the prize of the 
field. 

And knee-deep in claret, he'd die or he'd yield. 

To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair, 
So noted for drowning of sorrow and care ; 
But for wine and for welcome not more known 

to fame, 
Than the sense, wit, and taste, of a sweet lovely 

dame. 

A bard was selected to witness the fray, 
And tell future ages the feats of the day ; 
A bard who detested all sadness ;md spleen, 
And wish'd that Parnassus a vineyard had 
been. 

The dinner being over, the claret they ply. 
And every new cork is a new spring of joy ; 
In the bands of old friendship and kindred so 

set, 
And the bands grew the tighter the more they 
were wet. 

Gay pleasm-e ran riot as bumpers ran o'er ; 
Bright Fhoebus ne'er witness'd so joyous a core, 
And vowed that to leave them he was quite 

forlorn, 
Till Cynthia hinted he'd see them next morn. 

Six bottles a-piece had well wore out the 
night, 
When gallant Sir Robert, to finish the fight. 



Turn'd o'er in one bumper a bottle of red. 
And s\vore 'twas the way that their ancestors 
did. 

Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautious and 
sage. 
No longer the warfare, ungodly, would wage ; 
A liigh-ruHng Elder to wallow in wine I 
He left the foul business to folks less divine. 

The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the 
end ; 

But who can with fate and quart bumpers con- 
tend ? 

Though fate said — a hero should perish in light ; 

So uprose bright Phabus — and down fell the 
knight. 

Next uprose our bard, like a prophet in 
drink : — 
' Craigdarroch, thou'lt soar when creation 

shall sink ; 
But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme, 
Come — one bottle more — and have at the sub- 
lime ! 

" Thy line, that have struggled for Freedom 
with Bruce, 
8hall heroes and patriots ever produce ; 
So thine be the laurel, and mine be the bay ; 
The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of 

day I" 



* See Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides. 



SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE, 

A BROTHER POET, f 
AULD NEEBOR, 

I'm three times doubly o'er your debtor. 
For your aukl-farrent, frien'ly letter ; 
Tho' I maun say't, I doubt ye flatter. 

Ye speak so fair : 
For my puir, silly, rhymin' clatter. 

Some less maun sair. 

Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle j 
Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle, 
To cheer you through the weary widdle 

O' war'ly cares. 
Till bairns' bairns kindly cuddle 

Your auld grey hairs. 

But Davie, lad, I'm red ye're glaikit ; 
I'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleckit ; 
An' gif it's sae, ye sud be lickit 

Until ye fyke ; 
Sic bans as you sud ne'er be faikit, 

Be hain't wha like. 



t This is prefixed to the poems of David Sillar, pub- 
lished at Kilmarnock, 1789, and has not before appear 
ed in our author's printed poems. 



POEMS. 



61 



For me, I'm on Parnassus brink, 

Rivin* the words to gar them clink ; 

Wliyles daez't wi' love, whylcs daez't \vl' drink, 

Wi' jads or masons ; 
An' whyles, but aye owre late, I think, 

Braw sober lessons. 

Of a' the thoughtless sons o' man, 
Commen' me to the bardie clan ; 
Except it be some idle plan 

O' rhymin' clink. 
The devil-haet, that I sud ban. 

They ever tliink. 

Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme of livin' ; 
Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin' : 
But just the pouchie put the nleve in, 

An' while ought's there. 
Then, hiltie, skiltie, we gae scrievin'. 

An' fash nae mair. 

Leeze me on rhyme ! it's aye a treasure, 
My chief, amaist my only pleasure, 
At hame, a-fiel', at wark or leisure. 

The IMuse, poor hizzie ! 
Tho' rougb an' raploch be her measure, 

She's seldom lazy. 

Hand to the INIuse, my dainty Davie : 
The warl' may play you mony a shavie ; 
But for the Muse, she'll never leave ye, 

Tho' e'er sae poor, 
Na, even tho' limpin' wi' the spavie 

Frae door tae door. 



ON MY EARLY DAYS. 
I. 

I MIND it weel in early date, 

When I was beardless, young, and blate, 

An' first could thresh the barn, 
Or hand a yokin o' the pleugh. 
An' tho' foribughten sair eneugh, 

Yet unco proud to learn — 
When first amang the yellow corn 

A man I reckon'd was, 
And wi' the lave ilk merry morn 
Could rank my rig and lass — ■ 
Still shearing, and clearing 
The tither stooked raw, 
Wi' claivers, an' haivers, 
Wearing the day awa. 

II. 

E'en then a wish, I mind its pow'r, 
A wish that to my latest hour 

Shall strongly heave my breast, 
That I for poor auld Scotland's sake. 
Some usefu' plan or book could make, 

Or sing a sang, at least. 
The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide 

Amang the bearded bear, 



I turn'd the weeder-cllps aside, 
An' spared the symbol dear : 
No nation, no station, 

My envy e'er could raise, 
A Scot still, but blot still, 
I knew nae higher praise. 

III. 

But still the elements o' sang 

In formless jumble, right an' rang, 

Wild floated in my brain : 
"Till on that har'st I said before. 
My partner in the merry core, 

She rous'd the forming strain ; 
I see her yet, the sonsie quean, 

That lighted up her jingle. 
Her witching smile, her pauky e'en 
That gart ray heart-strings tingle : 
I fired, inspired, 

At every kindling keek, 
But bashing, and dashing, 
I feared aye to speak.* 



ON THE DEATH OF 

SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR. 

The lamp of day, with ill-presaging glare, 
Dim, cloudy, sunk beneath the western wave ; 

Th' inconstant blast howl'd thro' the darkening 
air, 
And hollow whistled in the rocky cave. 

Lone as I wander'd by each cliff and dell. 
Once the loved haunts of Scotia's royal 
train ; f 
Or mused where limpid streams once hallow'd, 
well,t 
Or mould'ring ruins mark the sacred fanc.§ 

Th' increasing blast roar'd round the beetling 
rocks. 
The clouds, swift-wing'd, flew o'er the starry 
sky. 
The groaning trees untimely shed their locks, 
And shooting meteors caught the startled eye. 

The paly moon rose in the livid east, 

And 'mong the cliffs disclosed a stately form, 

In weeds of woe that frantic beat her breast. 
And mix'd her wailings with the raving 
storm. 

Wild to my heart the filial pulses glow, 

'Twas Caledonia's tropliied shield I view'd ; 

Her form majestic droop'd in pensive woe. 
The lightning of her eye in tears imbued. 



» The reader will find some explanation of this 
poem in p. viii. 

t The King's Park at Holyrood-house. 
t St. Anthony's Well. 
§ St. Ajithony's Chapel. 



62 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Reversed tTiat spear, redoubtable in war, 
Reclined that banner, erst in fields nnfurl'd, 

That like a deathful meteor gleam'd afar, 
And braved the mighty monarchs of the 
world. — 

*' My patriot son fills an untimely grave !" 

With accents wild and lifted arms she cried ; 
*' Low lies the hand that oft was stretch'd to 
save, 
Low lies the heart that swell'd with honest 
pride ! 

" A weeping country joins a widow's tear, 
The helpless poor mix with the oi-phan's cry ; 

The drooping arts around theii- patron's bier, 
And grateful science heaves the heartfelt sigh. 

" I saw my sons resume their ancient fire ; 

I saw fair Freedom's blossoms richly blow ! 
But, ah ! how hope is born but to expire ! 

Relentless fate has laid the guardian low. — 

*' My patriot falls, but shall he lie unsung. 
While empty greatness saves a worthless 
name! 

No ; every Muse shall join her tuneful tongue, 
And future ages hear his growing fame. 

** And I will join a mother's tender cares. 
Thro' future times to make his virtues la^t, 

That distant years may boast of other Blairs" — 
She said, and vanish'd with the sweeping 
blast. 



WRITTEN 

ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A COPY OF THE POEMS, 
PRESENTED TO AN OLD SWEETHEART, THEN 
MARRIED.* 

Once fondly lov'd, and still remember'd dear, 
Sweet early object of my youthful vows, 

Accept this mark of friendship, warm, sincere, 
Friendship ! 'tis all cold duty now allows. — 

And when you read the simple artless rhymes, 
One friendly sigh for him, he asks no more, 

Who distant bmus in flaming torrid climes, 
Or haply lies beneath th' Atlantic roar. 



When hailstanes drive wl' bitter skyte, 
And infant frosts begin to bite, 
In hoary cranreuch drest ; 
Ae night at e'en a merry core, 
O' randie, gangrel bodies, 
In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore, 
To drink their orra duddies : 
Wi' quaffing and laughing, 

They ranted and they sang ; 
Wi' jumping and thumping. 
The very girdle rang. 

First, niest the fire, in auld red rags, 
Ane sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags, 

And knapsack a' in order ; 
His doxy lay within his ajm, 
Wi* usquebae an' blankets warm — • 

She blinket on her sodger : 
An' aye he gies the tousie drab 

The tither skelpin' kiss. 
While she held up her greedy gab 
Just like an a'mous dish. 
Ilk smack did crack still. 

Just like a cadger's whip. 
Then staggering and swaggering 
He roar'd this ditty up — 

AIR. 

Tune—" Soldier's Joy.' 



I AM a son of Mars who have been in many 

wars. 
And show my cuts and scars wherever I come ; 
This here was for a wench, and that other in a 

trench, 
When welcoming the French at the sound of 

the drum. 

Lai de dandle, &c. 



THE JOLLY BEGGARS : 

A CANTATA. 



RECITATIVO. 



When lyart leaves bestrow the ylrd, 

Oi- wavering like the Bauckie-bird,f 

Bedim cauld Boreas' blast ; 



II. 

past 



where 



my 



The girl mentioned in the letter to Dr. Moore, 
t The old Scotch name for the Bat. 



My 'prenticeship 

breath'd his last, 
When the bloody die was cast on the heights of 

Abram ; 
I served out my trade when the gallant game 

was play'd, 
And the Moro low was laid at the sound of the 

drum. 

Lai de daudle, &c. 

III. 

I lastly was with Curtis, among the floating 

batt'ries, 
And there I left for witness an arm and a limb ; 
Yet let my country need me, with Elliot to 

head me, 
Fd clatter my stumps at the sound of the drum. 
Lai de daudle, &c. 

IV. 

And now tho' I must beg with a wooden arm 

and leg, 
And many a tatter'd rag hanging over my bum, 



POEMS. 



63 



I'm as happy with my wallet, my bottle and 

my callet, 
As when I us'd iu scarlet to follow a drum. 
Lai de daudle, &c. 

V. 

What tho' with hoary locks, I must stand the 

Winter shocks, 
Beneath the woods and rocks often times for a 

home, 
When the tother bag I sell, and the tother 

bottle tell, 
I could meet a troop of hell, at the sound of 

the drum. 

Lai de daudle, &c. 



RECITATIVO. 

He ended ; and the kebars sheuk, 

Aboon the chorus roar ; 
While frighted rattans backward leuk, 

And seek the benmost bore j 
A fairy fiddler frae the neuk, 

He skirl'd out encore ! 
But up arose the martial chuck, 

And laid the loud uproart 

AIR. 

Tune—" Soldier Laddie." 

I ONCE was a maid, tho' I cannot tell when, 
And still my delight is in proper young men ; 
Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie, 
No wonder I'm fond of a sodger laddie, 
Sing, Lai de lal, &c. 

n. 

The first of my loves was a swaggering blade. 
To rattle the thundering drum was his trade ; 
His leg was so tight, and his cheek was so 

ruddy, 
Transported I was with my sodger laddie. 
Sing, Lal de lal, &c. 

HL 

But the godly old chaplain left him in the lurch, 
The sword I forsook for the sake of the church, 
He ventur'd the soul, and I risked the bod?/, 
'Twas then I prov'd false to my sodger laddie. 
Sing, Lal de lal, &c. 

IV. 

Full soon I grew sick of my sanctified sot. 
The regiment at large for a husband I got ; 
From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was 

ready, 
I asked no more but a sodger laddie. 

Sing, Lal de lal, &c. 

V. 

But the peace it reduc'd me to beg in despair. 
Till I met my old boy at Cunningham fair j 



His rat;/ regimental they flutter'd so gaudy, 
My heart it rejoic'd at my sodger laddie. 
Sing, Lal de lal, &c. 

VL 

And now I have livM — I know not how long, 

And still I can join in a cup or a song ; 

But whilst with both hands I can hold the glass 

steady, 
Here's to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie. 
Sing, Lal de lal, &c 



RECITATIVO. 

Then niest outspak a raucle carlin, 
Wha kent sae weel to cleek the sterling, 
For monie a pursie she had hooked. 
And had in mony a well been ducked. 
Her dove had been a Highland laddie, 
But weary fa' the waefu' woodie ! 
Wi' sighs and sobs she thus began 
To wail her braw John Highlaudman. 

AIR. 

Thine— ^' O an' ye were deatj> Gudeman." 

I. 

A HIGHLAND lad my love was born. 
The Lalland laws he held in scorn ; 
But he still was faithfu' to his clan. 
My gallant braw John Highlandman. 



Sing, hey my braw John Highlandman ! 
Sing, ho my braw John Highlandman ! 
There's not a lad in a' the Ian' 
Was match for my John Highlandman. 

IL 

With his philibeg an' tartan plaid. 
An' gude claymore down by his side. 
The ladies hearts he did trepan, 
My gallant braw John Higlilandmjui. 
Sing, hey, &c, 

IIL 

We ranged a' from Tweed to Spey, 
An' liv'd like lords and ladies gay ; 
For a Lalland face he feared none, 
My gallant braw John Highlandman, 
Sing, hey, &c. 

IV. 

They banish'd him beyond the sea, 
But ere the bud was on the tree, 
Adown my cheeks the pearls ran, 
Embracing my John Highlandman. 
Sing, hey, &c. 

V. 

But, oh ! they catch'd him at the last, 
And bound him in a dungeon fast ; 



64 



BURNS' WORKS. 



My curse upon them eveiy one, 
They've hang'd my braw John Higlandman. 
Sing, hey, &c. 

VI. 

And now a widow, T must mourn 
The pleasures that will ne'er return ; 
No comfort but a hearty can, 
When I think on John Highlandman. 
Sing, hey, &c. 



RECITATIVO. 

A pigmy scraper, wi' his fiddle, 

Wha us'd at trysts and fairs to driddle. 

Her strappin limb and gausy middle 

He reach'd nae higher, 
Had hol'd his heartie like a riddle, 

An' blawn't on fire. 

Wi' hand on haunch, an' upward e'e. 
He croon'd his gamut, one, two, three, 
Then in an Arioso key, 

The wee Apollo 
Set oflf wi' Allegretto glee 

His giga solo. 



AIR. 

2^71*—" Whistle owre the lave o't." 

I. 

Let me ryke up to dight that tear, 
An' go wi me to be my dear, 
An then your every care and fear 
May whistle owre the lave o't. 



I am a fiddler to my trade, 
An' a' the tunes that e'er I play'd. 
The sweetest still to wife or maid. 
Was whistle owre the lave o't. 

II. 

At kirns and weddings we'se be there, 
An' O ! sae nicely's we will fare ; 
We'll bouse about till Daddie Care 
Sings whistle owre the lave o't. 
I am, &c. 

III. 

Sae merrily the banes we'll pyke, 
An' sun oursels about the dyke. 
An' at our leisure, when we like, 
We'll whistle owre the lave o't. 
I am, &c. 

IV. 

But bless me wi' your heaven o' charms. 
And while I kittle hair on thairras. 
Hunger, cauld, an a sick harms, 
May whistle owre the lave o't. 
I am, &c. 



RECITATIVO. 

Her charms had struck a sturdy Caird, 

As weel as poor Gutscraper ; 
He taks the fiddler by the beard. 

And draws a rusty rapier — 
He swoor by a' was swearing worth. 

To speet him like a pliver. 
Unless he would from that time forth. 

Relinquish her for ever. 

Wi' ghastly e'e, poor tweedle dee 

Upon his hunkers bended. 
And pray'd for grace wi' ruefu' face, 

And sae the quarrel ended. 
But though his little heart did grieve, 

When round the tinkler prest her. 
He feign'd to snirtle in his sleeve. 

When thus the caird address' d her. 



Tune--" Clout the Caldron." 

I. 

My bonnie lass, I work in brass, 

A tinkler is my station ; 
I've travell'd round all Christian ground 

In this my occupation. 
I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroU'd 

In many a noble squadron : 
But vain they search'd, when off I march'd 

To go and clout the cauldron. 

I've ta'en the gold, &c, 

II. 

Despise that shrimp, that wither'd imp, 

Wi' a his noise an' caprin', 
An' tak' a share wi' those that bear 

The budget an' the apron. 
An' hy that stowp, my faith and houp, 

An' hy that dear Keilbagie,* 
If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant. 

May I ne'er weet my craigie. 

An' by that stowp, &c. 

RECITATIVO. 

The caird prevail'd — the unblushing fair 

In his embraces sunk. 
Partly wi' love o'ercome sae sair, 

An' partly she was drunk. 
Sir Violino, with an air 

That show'd a man of spunk, 
Wish'd unison between the pair. 

An' made the bottle clunk 

To their health that night. 

But hurchin Cupid shot a shaft 

That play'd a dame a shavie. 
The fiddler rak'd her fore an aft, 

Behint the chicken cavie. 
Her lord, a wight o' Homer's * craft, 

Tho' limping with the spavie, 



» A peculiar sort of whisky so called, a great favour- 
ite with Poosic-Nancie's clubs. 

* Homer is allowed to be the oldest balled-singer on 
record. 



POEMS. 



65 



He liirpl'd up, and lap like daft, 
An' shoiM thcai Daiatie Davie 

O boot that night. 

He was a care-defying blade 

As ever Bacchus listed, 
Though Fortune sair upon him laid, 

His heart she ever niiss'd it. 
He had no wish but — to be glad, 

Nor want but — when he thirsted ; 
He hated nought but — to be sad, 

And thus the JMuse suggested, 

His sang that night. 

AIR. 
Tu)ie-~" For a' that, an' a* tliat." 

I AM a bard of no regard, 

Wi* gentle folks, an' a' that ; 

But Homer-like, the glowran byke, 
Frae town to town I draw that. 



For a' that, an' a that ; 

An' twice as nieikle's a' that; 
I've lost but aue, I've twa behin', 

I've wife enough for a' that. 

H. 

I never draidc the Muse's stauk, 

Castalid's burn, an' a' that ; 
But there it streams, and richly reams, 

My Helicon I ca' that. 

For a' that, &c. 

HI. 

Great love I bear to a' the fair. 
Their humble slave, an' a' that ; 

But lordly will, I hold it still 
A mortal sin to thraw that. 

For a' that, &c. 

IV. 

In raptures sweet, this hour we meet, 

Wi' nmtual love an' a' that ; 
But for how laug the Jlie may stang, 

Let inclination law that. 

For a' that, &c. 

V. 

Their tricks and craft have put me daft, 
They've ta'en me in, an' a' that ; 

But clear your decks, and here's the sex ! 
I like the jads for a'. that. 

" For a' that, an' a' that, 

• An' twice as meikle's a' that ; 
My dearest bluid, to do them guid, 
They're welcome till't for a' that. 

RECITATIVO. 

So sung the bard — and Nansie's wa's 
Shook with a thunder of applause, 
Re-echo'd from each mouth ; 



They toom'd their pocks, an' pawn'd their duds, 
They scarcely left to co'er their fuds, 
To quench their lowan drouth. 

Then owre again, the jovial thrang. 

The poet did request, 
To loose his pack ;iti' wale a sang, 
A ballad o' the best : 
He rising, rojoicing, 

Between his twa Deborahs, 
Looks round him, an' found them 
Impatient for the chorus. 



Tune—-" Jolly Mortals fill your Glasses." 

\ 

She ! the smoking bowl before us, 
Mark our jovial ragged ring ! 

Round and round take up the chorus, 
And in raptures let us sing. 



A fig for those by law protected! 

Liberty's a glorious feast ! 
Courts for cowards were erected, 

Churches built to please the priest 

If. 

What is title ? what is treasure ? 

What is reputation's care ? 
If we lead a life of pleasure, 

'Tis no niattcr how or where ! 



IIL 

With the ready trick and table. 
Round we wander all the day ; 

And at night, in barn or stable. 
Hug our doxies on the hay. 
A fig, &c. 

IV. 

Does the train-attended carriage 
Through the country lighter rove ? 

Does the sober bed of marriage 
Witness brighter scenes of love ? 
A fig, &c. 

V. 

Life is all a variorum, 

We regard not how it goes ; 
Let them cant about decorum 

Who have characters to lose. 
A fig, &c. 

VL 

Here's to the budgets, bags, and wallets ' 
Here's to all the wandering train ! 

Here's our ragged brats and collets ! 
One and all cry out. Amen ! 

A fig for those by law protected ! 

Liberty's a glorious feast ! 
Courts for cowards were erected, 

Churches built to please the priest. 



66 BURNS' WORKS, 

THE KIRK'S ALARM:* 



A SATIRE. 

Okthodox, orthodox, wha believe in John 
Knox, 
Let me sound an alarm to your conscience ; 
There's a heretic blast has been blawn in the 
wast, 
That what is no sense must be nonsense. 

Dr. Mac, f Dr. INIac, you should stretch on a 
rack, 

To strike evil doers wi' terror ; 
To join faith and sense upon ony pretence, 

Is heretic, damnable error. 

Town of Ayr, town of Ayr, it was mad, I de- 
clare. 

To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing ; 
Provost John is still deaf to the church's relief, 

And orator Bob \ is its ruin. 

D'rymple mild, § D'rymple mild, tho' your 

heart's like a child, 
"" And your life like the new driven snaw, 
Yet that winna save ye, auld Satan must have 

ye, 

For preaching that three's ane an' twa. 

Rumble John,^ Rumble John, mount the steps 
wi' a groan, 
Cry the book is wi' heresy cramm'd ; 
Then lug out your ladle, deal brimstone like 
adle. 
And roar every note of the damn'd. 

Simper James, |j Simper James, leave the fair 
Killie dames, 
There's a holier chace in your view ; 
I'll lay on your head, that the pack ye'U soon 
lead. 
For puppies like you there's but few. 

Singet Sawney,** Singet Sawney, are ye herd- 
ing the penny, 

Unconscious what evils await ; 
Wi* a jump, yell, and howl, alarm every soul, 

For the foul thief is just at your gate. 

Daddy Auld,|f Daddy Auld, there's a tod in 

the fauld, 
A tod meikle waur than the clerk ; 
Tho' ye can do little skaith, ye'U be iji at tho 

death, 
And if ye canna bite ye may bark. 



Davie Bluster,* Davie Bluster, if for a saiist 
ye do muster, 
The corps is no nice of recruits ; 
Yet to worth lets be just, royal blood ye might 
boast. 
If the ass was the king of the brutes. 

Jamie Goose,-|- Jamie Goose, ye ha'e made but 
toom roose, 
In hunting the wicked lieutenant ; 
But the Doctor's your mark, for the L — d's 
haly ark ; 
He has cooper'd and cawd a wrang pin in't. 

Poet Willie, \ Poet Willie, gie the Doctor a 
volley, 

Wi' your liberty's chain and your wit ; 
O'er Pegasus' side ye ne'er lai«l a stride, 

Ye but smelt, man, the place where he sh-t. 

Andro Gouk, ^ Andro Gouk, ye may slander 

the book. 

And the book not the waur let me tell ye ; 

Ye are rich, and look big, but lay by hat and 

wig, 

And ye'U hae a calf's head o* sma' value. 

Barr Steenie, || Barr Steenie, what mean ye ? 
what mean ye ? 

If ye'U meddle nae mair wi' the matter, 
Ye may ha'e some pretence to bavins and sense, 

Wi' people wha ken ye nae better. 

Irvine side,** Irvine side, wi' your turkey-cock 
pride. 
Of manhood but sma' is your share ; 
Ye've the figure, 'tis true, even your faes will 
allow, 
And your friends they dare grant you nae 
mair. 

Muirland Jock,ff Muirland Jock, when the 
L — d makes a rock 

To crush Common Sense for her sins. 
If ill manners were wit, there's no mortal so fit 

To confound the poor Doctor at ance. 

Holy Will, Ij: Holy Will, there was wit i* your 
skull. 
When ye pilfer'd the alms o' the poor ; 
The timmer is scant, when ye're ta'en for a 
saint, 
Wha should swing in a rape for an hour. 

Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, seize your sp'ritual 
guns. 
Ammunition ye never can need ; 
Your hearts are the stuff, will be powther 
enough, 
And your skulls are storehouses o' lead. 



* This poem was written a short time after the pub- 
lication of Mr. M'Oiirs Essay. 

j Mr. M' II. t H 1 A 11. 

5 Dr. 1) c. ^ Mr. R II. 

II Mr. M' y. ** Mr. M— y. 

ft Mr. A d. 



* Mr. G , O c. t Mr. Y g, C k. 

J Ml. 1' s, A-r. H Dr. A. M >ll. 

II Mr. S V-^, B— r. •* Mr. S h, G n. 

} t Mr. b a. ^^ An E r i« M — e. 



POEMS. 



67 



Poet Bums, Poet Burns, \vi* your prie8t-skolp- 
ing turns, 

Why desert ye your auld native shire ; 
Your muse is a gipsie, e'en tho' she were tipsie, 

Slie could ca' us nae waur than we are. 



THE TWA HERDS.* 

O a' ye pious godly flocks, 
Weel fed on pasture's orthodox, 
Wha now will keep you frae the fox. 

Or worrying tykes, 
Or wha will tent the waifs and crocks, 

About the dykes ? 

The twa best herds in a' the wast, 
Tliat e'er ga'e gospel horn a blast, 
These five-and-twenty siuuners past, 

O ! dool to tell, 
Ha'e had a bitter black out-cast 

Atween themsel. 

O, M y, man, and worthy R 11, 

How could you raise so vile a bustle, 
Ye'll see how new-light herds will whistle, 

An' think it fine ! 
The Lord's cause ne'er gat sic a twistle, 

Sin' I ha'e min'. 

O, Sirs ! whae'er wad hae expeckit, 

Your duty ye wad sae negleckit. 

Ye wha were ne'er by laird respeckit. 

To wear the plaid. 
But by the brutes themselves eleckit. 

To be their guide. 

What flock wi' M y's flock could rank, 

Sae hale and hearty every shank, 
Nae poison'd soor Arminian stank, 

He let them taste, 
Frae Calvin's well, aye clear they drank, 

O sic a feast ! 

The thummart, wil'-cat, brock, and tod, 
Weel kend his voice thro' a' tlie wood. 
He smelt their ilka hole and road, 

Baith out and in. 
And weel he lik'd to shed their bluid. 

And sell their skin. 

What herd like R 11 toll'd his tale, 

His voice was heard thro' muir and dale, 
He kend the Lord's sheep, ilka tail, 

O'er a' the height. 
And saw gin they were sick or hale, 

At the first sight. 

He fine a mangy sheep could scrub, 
Or nobly fling the gospel club, 



* This piece was among the first of our Author's pro- 
ductions which he submitted to the pubUc ; and was 
occasioned by a dispute between two clergymen, near 
Kilmarnock. 



And now-light herds could nicely drub, 
Or pay their skin; 

Could shake them o'er the buruing dub, 
Or heave them in. 

Sic twa — O ! do I live to see't. 
Sic famous twa should disagreet. 
An' names, like villain, hypocrite, 

Ilk ither gi'en. 
While new-light herds wi' laughin' spite, 

Say neither's liein' ! 

A' ye wha tent the gospel fauld, 

There's D n, deep, and P s, shaul. 

But chiefly thou, apostle A — d 

We trust in thee, 
That thou wilt work them, hot and cauld, 

Till they agree. 

Consider, Sirs, how we're beset. 
There's scarce a new herd that we get, 
But comes frae 'mang that cursed set, 

I winna name, 
I hope frae heav'n to see them yet 

In fiery flame. 

D e has lieen lang our fae, 

M' 11 has wraught us meikle wae, 

And that curs'd rascal ca'd M* e, 

And baith the S 8, 

That aft ha'e made us black and blae, 

Wi' vengefu' paws. 

Auld W w lang has hatch'd mischief, 

We thought aye death wad bring relief, 
But he has gotten, to our grief, 

Ane to succeed him, 
A chield wha'll soundly buff" our beef; 

I meikle dread him. 

And mony a ane that I could tell, 
Wha fain would openly rebel, 
Forby turn-coats amang oursel, 

There S— h for ane, 
I doubt he's but a grey -nick quill. 

And that ye'll fin'. 

O ! a' ye flocks o'er a' the hills. 

By mosses, meadows, moors, and fells. 

Come join your counsel and your skills, 

To cow the lairds. 
And get the brutes the power themsels. 

To choose their herds. 

Then Orthodoxy yet may prance. 

And learning in a woody dance, 

And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense, 

That bites sae sair, 
Be banish'd o'er the sea to France : 

Let him bark there. 

Then Shaw's and Dairy mple's eloquence, 
M' ■■ .ll's close nervous excellence; 



68 
M'Q. 



BURNS' WORKS. 



■'s pathetic manly sense, 

And guid M' li, 

Wi' S — th, wha tliro' the heart can glance, 
JMay a' pack aff. 



THE HENPECK'D HUSBAND. 

Cuhs'd be the man, the poorest wrctcli In life, 
The crouching vassal to the tyrant wife, 
Who has no will but by her high permission ; 
Who has not sixpence but in her possession ; 
Who must to her his dear friend's secret tell ; 
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell. 
Were such the wife had fallen to my part, 
I'd break her spirit, or I'd break her heart ; 
I'd charm her with the magic of a switch, 
I'd kiss her maids, and kick the perverse b — h. 



ELEGY ON THE YEAR 1788. 

For lords or kings I dinna mourn, 

E'en let them die — for that they're born ! 

But, oh, prodigious to reflect, 

A Towjnont, Sirs, is gane to wreck ! 

O Eiffhty-eipht, '\u thy sma' space 

What (lire events ha'e taken place ! 

Of what enjoyments thou hast reft u^ ! 

In what a pickle thou hast left us ! 

The Spanish empire's tint ahead. 
An' my auld teethless Bawtie's dead ; 
The toolzie's teugh 'tween Pitt an' Fox, 
An' our guidwife's wee birdy cocks ; 
The tane is game, a bluidy devil, 
But to the hen-birds unco civil ; 
The tither's dour, has nae sic breedin'. 
But better stuflF ne'er claw'd a midden ! 

Ye ministers, come mount the pulpit. 
An' cry till ye be hearse an' rupit ; 
For Eighty-eight he wish'd you weel, 
An' gied you a' baith gear an' meal ; 
E'en mony a plack, an' mony a peck. 
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck ! 

Ye bonnie lasses dight your een, 
For some o' you hae tint a frien' ; 
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was ta'en 
What ye'U ne'er hae to gi'e again. 

Observe the very nowt an' sheep, 
How dowfF an' dowie now they creep ; 
Kay, even the yirth itsel' does cry. 
For Embro' wells are grutten dry. 

O Eighty-nine thou's but a bairn, 
An' no owre auld, I hope, to learn ! 
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak' care, 
Thou now has got thy daddy's chair, 



Nae hand-cuff'd, mizzl'd, haff-shackl'd Regent^ 
But, like himsel', a full fiee agent. 
Be sure ye follow out the plan 
Nae waur than he did, honest man ! 
As meikle better as you can, 
January 1, 1789. 



VERSES 

WRITTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE 1N> 
CARRON. 

We cam na here to view your warks 

In hopes to be mair wise. 
But only, lest we gang to hell, 

It may be nae surprise : 
But when we tirl'd at your door, 

Your porter dought na hear us ; 
Sae may, should we to hell's yetts come, 

Your billy Satan sair us ! 



LINES WRITTEN BY BURNS, 

WHILE ON HIS DEATH-BED, TO J N R K N, 

AYRSHIRE, AND FORWARDED TO HIM IMME- 
DIATELY AFTER THE POEt's DEATH. 

He who of R — k — n sang, lies stiff and dead, 
And a green grassy hillock hides his head ; 
Alas ! alas ! a devilish change indeed ! 



At a meeting of the Dumfries shire Volunteers, 
held to commemorate the anniversary of Rodney's 
victory, April 12tli 1782, Burns was called upon 
for a Song, instead of which he delivered the follow- 
ing Lines: 

Instead of a song, boys, I'll give you a toast, 
Here's the memory of those on the twelfth that 

we lost ; — 
That we lost, did I say, nay, by heav'n ! that we 

found. 
For their fiime it shall last while the world goes 

round. 
The next in succession, I'll give you the King, 
Whoe'er would betray him on high may he swing; 
And here's the g.rand fabric, our free Consti- 
tution, 
As built on the base of the great Revolution ; 
And longer with Politics not to be cramm'd, 
Be Anarchy curs'd, and be Tyranny damn'd ; 
And who would to Liberty e'er prove disloyal. 
May his son be a hangman, and he his first trial. 



POEMS, 



HOLY WILLIE'S PRAYER. 

Holy Willie was a William Fisher, a ruling elder. He was a maltster by buvsiness, 
and as he sold his malt to alehouses and tavern-keepers, who made their own liquor, 
when he called round for his money, it was a raalAer of course that he should some- 
times drink with his customers. By this means-, he is said, sometimes to have been 
surprised into a glass too much, and when this was the case, he was supposed to be 
somewhat amorously inclined. It is a piece of satire, more exquisitely severe than 
any Burns afterwards wrote. Something, however, is to be allowed to the nature of 
the subject, and something to the education of the poet, and if, from veneration to the 
names of Swift and Dryden, we tolerate the grossness of the one and the indelicacy 
of the other — the respect due to that of Burns, may surely claim indulgence for a few 
light strokes of broad humour. — Chapman. 



HOLY WILLIE'S PRAYER. 

THOU, wha in tlie heavens dost dwell, 
Wha, as it pleases best thyscl', 

Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, 
A' for thy glory, 

And no for ony guid or ill 

They've done afore thee I 

1 bless and praise thy matchless might, 
Whan thousands thou has left in night, 
That I am here afore thy sight, 

For gifts an' grace, 
A burnin' an' a shinin' light, 

To a' ihis place. 

What was I, or my generation, 
That I should get such exaltation, 
I wha deserve sic just damnation, 

For broken laws, 
Five thousand years' fore my creation, 

Thro' Adam's cause. 



When frae my mither's womb I fell, 
Thou mig-ht hae plunged me in hell. 
To gnasli my gums, to weep and wail, 

In burnin' lake, 
Whar d — n — d devils roar and yell, 

Chain'd to a stake. 

Yet I am here a chosen sample. 

To show thy grace is great an' ample ; 

I'm here a pillar in thy temple. 

Strong as a rock, 
A guide, a buckler, an' example, 

To a' thy flock. 

O L — d thou kens what zeal I bear, 
When drinkers drink, and swearers swear. 
And singing here, and dancing there, 

W' great and sma' ; 
For I am keepit by thy fear, 

Free from tliema'. 



But yet, O L — d ! confess I nni.st. 
At times I'm fush'd wi' flesbly lust, 
An' sometimes too, wi' warldly trust 

Vile self gets in ; 
But thou remembers we are dust, 

Defil'd in sin. 



O L — d ! yestreen, thou kens, wi' Meg, 
Thy pardon 1 sincerely beg, 
May it ne'er be'a livin' plague. 

To my dishonour, 
An' I'll ne'er lift a lawless l-g 

Again upon her. 

Besides, I farther maiui allow, 
Wi' Lizie's lass, three times I trow : 
But, L — d that Friday I was fou', ' 

When I came near her, 
Or else, thou kens, thy sennud true 

Wad ne'er hae steer'd her. 



Maybe thou lets this fleshly Ihoni, 
Beset thy servant e'en and morn, 
Lest he owre high and proud shou'd turn, 

'Cause he's sae gifted ; 
If fae, thy ban' maun e'en be, borne. 

Until thou lift it. 



L — d bless thy chosen in this place. 

For here thou hast a chosen race ; 

But G — d confound their stubborn face. 

And blast their name, 
Wha bring thy elders to disgrace, 

And public shame. 



L — d mmd Gaun Hamilton's deserts. 
He drinks, an' swears, an' plays at carts. 
Yet has sac mony takin' arts, 

Wi' grit an' sma', 
Frae G— d's ane priest the people's hearts 

He steals awa'. 



BURNS' WORKS. 



An' whan we chasten'd him therefore, 
Thou kens how he bred sic a splore, 
As set the warld in a roar 

O' laughin' at us ; 
Curse thou his basket and his store, 

Kail an' potatoes. 

L — d hear my earnest cry and pray'r, 

Against that presby fry o' Ayr ; 

Thy strong right hand, L — d make it bare, 

Upo' their heads, 
L — d weigh it down, and dinna spare, 

For their misdeeds. 

O L— d my G — d, that glib-ton^'d Aiken, 

My very heart an' saul are quakm', 

To think how we stood sweatin,' shakin', 



An' pi — d wi' dread. 
While he wi' hingin' lips and snakin', 
Held up his head. 

L — d in the day of vengeance try him. 
L — d visit them wha did employ him, 
And pass not in thy mercy by 'em. 

Nor hear tJieir pray'r ; 
But for'thy people's sake destroy 'em 
And dinna spare. 

But L — d remember me and mine, 
Wi' mercies temp'ral and divine. 
That I for gear and grace may shine, 

ExcelI'd by nane ; 
An' a' the glory shall be thine. 

Amen, amen ! 



POEMS. 



69 



STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT. 

Thickest night o'erhangs ray dwelling ! 

Howling tempests o'er me rave ! 
Turbid torrents, wintry swelling, 

Still surround my lonely cave ! 

Crystal streamlets gently flowing, 

Busy haunts of base mankind. 
Western breezes, softly blowing, 

Suit not ray distracted mind. 

In the cause of right engaged. 

Wrongs injurious to redress, 
Honour's war we strongly waged, 

But the heavens deny'd success. 

Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us, 

Not a hope that dare attend, 
The wide world is all before us — 

But a world without a friend ! * 



CLARINDA. 

Ci.ARiNDA, mistress of my soul. 
The measur'd time is run ! 

The wretch beneath the dreary pole, 
So marks his latest sun. 

To what dark cave of frozen night 

Shall poor Sylvander hie ; 
Depriv'd of thee, his life and light, 

The sun of all his joy. 

We part, — but by these precious drops 

That fill thy lovely eyes ! 
No other light shall guide my steps, 

Till thy bright beams arise. 

She, the fair sun of all her sex. 
Has blest my glorious day : 

And shall a glimmering planet fix 
My worship to its ray ? 



A VISION. 

As I stood by yon roofless tower, 

Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air. 
Where th' howlet mourns in her ivy bower, 

And tells the midnight moon her care. 

The winds were laid, the air was still, 
The stars they shot alang the sky ; 

The fox was howling on the hill. 
And the distant echoing glens reply. 



The stream adown its hazelly path, 
Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's. 

Hasting to join the sweeping Nith,* 
Whase distant roaring swells and fa*s. 

The cauld blue north was streaming forth 
Her lights, wi' hissing eerie din ; 

Athort the lift they start and shift. 
Like fortune's favours, tint as win. 

By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes,f 
And, by the moon-beam, shook, to see 

A stern and stalwart gliaist arise, 
Attir'd as minstrels wont to be. 

Had I a statue been o* stane. 
His darin look had daunted me ; 

And on his bonnet grav'd was plain. 
The sacred posie — Liberty ! 

And frae his harp sic strains did flow, 

Might roused the slumb'ring dead to hear ; 

But oh, it was a tale of woe, 
As ever met a Briton's ear ! 

He sang wi' joy his forraer day, 

He weeping wail'd his latter times ; 

But what he said it was nae play, 
I winna ventur't in my rhymes.^ 



■ » Strathallan, it is presumed, was one of tlic follow- 
ers of the young Chevalier, and is supposed to be lyiisg 
concealed in some cave of the Highlands, after the 
battle of CuUoden, ITiis song was written before the 
year 1788. • - 



COPY OF A POETICAL ADDRESS 

TO 

MR. WILLIAM TYTLER, 

WITH THE PRESENT OF THE BARd's PICTURE. 

Revered defender of beauteous Stuart, 
Of Stuart, a name once respected, 

A name, which to love was the mark of a ti'ue 
heart. 
But now 'tis despised and neglected : 



* Variation. To join yon river on the Strath. 

t Variation. Now looking over firth and fauld. 
Her hom the pale-faced Cynthia rear'd ; 
When, lo, in form of minstrel auld, 
A stern and stalwart ghaist appear'd. 

:j: This poem, an imperfect copy of which was print- 
ed in Johnson's Museum, is here p,'\yen from the poet's 
MS. with his last corrections. The scenery so finely 
described is taken from nature. The poet is supposed 
to be musing by night on the banks of the river Clu« 
den, and by the ruins of Lincluden-Abbey, founded in 
the twelfth century, in the reign of Malcom IV. of 
whose present situation the reader may find some ac- 
count in Pennant's Tour in Scotland, or Grose's Anti- 
(juities of that division of the island. Such a time and 
such a place are well fitted for holding converse with 
aerial beings. Though this poem has a political bias, 
yet it may be presumed that no reader of taste, what- 
ever his opinions may be, would forgive it being omit. 
te<l. Our poet's prudence suppressed the song of Li- 
bcrtji, perhaps fortunately for his reputation. It may 
be questioned whether, even in the resources of his 
genius, a strain of poetry could have been found wor- 
thy of the grandeur and solemnity of this preparation. 



n'o 



BURNS* WORKS. 



Tho' something like moisture conglobes ia my 
eye, 
Let no one misdeem me disloyal ; 
A poor friendless wand'rer may well claim a 
sigh, 
Still more, if that wand'rer were royal. 

My fathers, that name have rever'd on a throne ; 

My fathers have fallen to right it ; 
Those fathers would spurn their degenerate son. 

That name should he scoffingly slight it. 

Still in prayers for King George I most heartily 
join. 
The Queen and the rest of the gentry. 
Be they wise, be they foolish, is nothing of 
mine ; 
Their title's avow'd by the country. 

But why of that epocha make such a fuss, 



But loyalty, truce ! we're on dangerous ground, 
Wlio knows how the fashions may alter, 

The doctrine, to-day, that is loyalty sound, 
To-morrow may bring us a halter. 

I send you a trifle, a head of a bard, 

A trifle scarce worthy your care ; 
But accept it, good Sir, as a mark of regard, 

Sincere as a saint's dying prayer. 

Now life's chilly evening dim shades on your 
eye. 

And ushers the long dreary night : 
But you, like the star that athwart gilds the sky. 

Your course to the latest is bright. 

My muse jilted me here, and turned a cor- 
ner on me, and I have not got again into her 
good graces. Do me the justice to believe me 
sincere in my grateful remembrance of the many 
civilities you have honoured me with since I 
came to Edinburgh, and in assuring you that I 
have the honour to be. 

Revered Sir, 
Your obliged and very humble Servant, 

R. BURNS. 
Edinburgh, 1787. 



To ken what French mischief was brew in* ; 

Or what the drumlie Dutch were doin' ; 

That vile doup skelper. Emperor Joseph, 

If Venus yet had got his nose off; 

Or how the collieshankie works 

Atween the Russian and the Turks ; 

Or if the Swede, before he halt, 

Would play anither Charles the Tvvalt ! 

If Denmark, ony body spak o't ; 

Or Poland, wha had now the tack o't ; 

How cut-throat Prussian blades wese hingin 

How libbet Italy was singin ; 

If Spaniard, Portuguese, or Swiss, 

Were saying or takin ought amiss : 

Or how our merry lads at hame. 

In Britain's court kept up the game : 

How royal George, the Lord leuk o'er him ! 

Was managing St. Stephen's quorum ; 

If sleekit Chatham Will was livin, 

Or glaikit Charlie got his nieve in ; 

How daddie Burke the plea was cookin. 

If Warren Hastings' neck was yeukin ; 

How cesses, stents, and fees were raxed, 

Or if bare a — yet were taxed ; 

The news o' princes, dukes, and earls, 

Pimps, sharpers, bawds, and opera-girls ; 

If that daft Buckie, Geordie Wales, 

Was threshin still at hizzies* tails. 

Or if he was growin oughtlins douser. 

And no a perfect kintra cooser. — 

A' this and mair I never heard of; 

And, but for you, I might despair'd of. 

So gratefu', back your news I send you, 

And pray, a' guid things may attend you ! 

Ellisland, Monday Morning, 1790. 



THE FOLLOWING POEM 

WAS WRITTEN TO A GENTLEMAN WHO HAD 

SENT HIM A NEWSPAPER, AND OFFERED 

TO CONTINUE IT FREE OF EXPENSE. 

Kind sir, I've read your paper through, 
And faith, to me, 'twas really new ! 
How guessed ye, sir, what maist I wanted ? 
This mony a day I've grain'd and gaunted, 



POEM. 

ON PASTORAL POETRY. 

Hail Poesie ! thou nymph reserved ! 

In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerved 

Frae common sense, or sunk enerved 

'Mang heaps o' clavers : 
And och ! o*er aft thy joes hae starved, 

'Mid a' thy favours ! 

Say, Lassie, why thy train araang, 
while loud the trump's heroic clang. 
And sock or buskin skelp alang 

To death or marriage ; 
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang 

But wi' miscarriage ? 

In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives ; 
Eschylus' pen Will Shakespeare drives; 
Wee Pope, the knurlin, 'till him rives 

Horatian fame ; 
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives 

Even Sappho's flame. 



POEMS. 



71 



But thee, Theocritus, wha mutches ? 
They're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches ; 
Squire Pope but busks his skinlin patches 

O' heatheu tatters : 
I pass by hunders, nameless wretches, 

That ape their betters. 

In this braw age o' wit an lear. 

Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair 

Blaw sweetly in its native air 

And rural grace ;' 
And wi' the far-famed Grecian share 

A rival place ? 

Yes ! there is ane ; a Scottish call an ! 
There's ane ; come forrit, honest Allan ! 
Thou need na jouk behint the hallan, 

A chiel so clever ; 
The teeth o* time may gnaw Tamtallan, 

But thou's for ever. 

Thou paints auld nature to the nines, 

In thy sweet Caledonian lines ; 

Nae gowden stream thro' myrtles twines, 

Where Philomel, 
While nightly breezes sweep the vines, 

Her griefs will tell ! 

In gowany glens thy burnie strays. 
Where bonnie lassies bleach their claes j 
Or trots by hazelly shaws or braes, 

Wi' hawthorns gray. 
Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays 

At close o' day. 

Thy rural loves are nature's sel ; 
Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell ; 
Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell 

O' witchin' love. 
That charm that can the strongest quell, 

The sternest move. 



SKETCH. 

NEW YEAR'S DAY. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

This day, Time winds th' exhausted chain, 
To run the twelvemonths' length again : 
I see the old bald-pated fellow, 
With ardent eyes, complexion sallow, 
Adjust the unimpair'd machine, 
To wheel the equal, dull routine. 

The absent lover, minor heir. 

In vain assail him with their prayer. 

Deaf as my friend he sees them press. 

Nor makes the hour one moment less. 

Will you (the Major's with the hounds, 

The happy tenants share his rounds j 

Coila's fair Rachel's care to-day,* 

And blooming Keith's engaged with Gray) : 



* This voung lady was drawing a picture of Coila 
ftom ihe Vision, see i)age OD. 



From huuscwife cares a mluute borrow — 

— That grandchild's cap will do to-morrow- 

And join with me a moralizing. 

This day's propitious to be wise in. 

F"irst, what did yesternight deliver ; 

" Another year is gone for ever." 

And what is this day's strong suggestion ! 

" The passing moment's all we rest on !" 

Rest on — for what ! What do we here ? 

Or why regard the passing year ? 

Will time, amus'd with proverb'd lore, 

Add to our date one minute more ? 

A few days may — a few years must — 

Repose us in the silent dust. 

Then, is it wise to damp our bliss ! 

Yes, all such reasonings are amiss ! 

The voice of nature loudly cries. 

And many a message from the skies. 

That something in us never dies : 

That on this frail, uncertain state, 

Hang matters of eternal weight ; 

That future-life in worlds unknown 

Must take its hue from this alone : 

Whether as heavenly glory bright. 

Or dark as misery's woeful night — 

Since then, my honour'd first of friends, 

On this poor being all depends : 

Let us th' important now emploj'. 

And live as those who never die. 

Tho' you, with days and honours crowu'd. 

Witness that filial circle round, 

(A sight life's sorrows to repulse, 

A sight pale envy to convulse) 

Others now claim your chief regard— 

Yourself, you wait your bright rewards 



EXTEMPORE, 

ON THE LATE 

MR. WILLIAM SMELLIE,» 

A UTHOR OF THE rUILOSOPHY OF NATURAL HIS- 
TORV, AND MEMBER OF THE ANTIQUARIAN 
AND ROYAL SOCIETIES OF EDINBURGH. 

To Crochallan came 
The old cock'd hat, the grey surtout, the same i 
His bristling beard just rising in its might, 
'Twas four long nights and days to shaving 

night, 
His uncombed grizzly locks wild - staring, 

thatch'd, 
A head for thought profound and clear, ua- 

match'd ; 
Yet,' tho' his caustic wit was biting, rude. 
His heart was warm, benevolent and good. 



* Mr. Smellie, and our poet, were both members of 
a club in Edinburgh, under the name of Crochallan 
Fcucibles. 



72 BURNS' WORKS. 

POETICAL INSCRIPTION 



AN ALTAR TO INDEPENDENCE, 

kl KERROUCHTRY, THE SEAT OF MR. HERON- 
WRITTEN IN SUMMER, 1795. 

Thou of an independent mind. 

With soul resolved, witli soul resigned ; 

Prepared power's proudest frown to brave, 

Who wilt not be, nor have a slave ; 

Virtue alone who dost revere, 

Thy own reproach alone dost fear, 

Approach this shrine, and worship here. 



SONNET, 



THE DEATH OF MR. RIDDEL. 

No more, ye warblers of the wood, no more, 
Nor pour your descant grating on my ear : 
Thou young-eyed Spring thy charms I can- 
not bear ; 
More welcome were to me grim Winter's wild- 
est roar. 

How can ye please, ye flowers, with all your 
dies ? 
Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend : 
How can I to the tuneful strain attend ? 
That strain pours round th' untimely tomb 
where Riddel lies.* 

Yes, pour, ye warblers, pour the notes of woe, 
And soothe the Virtues weeping on this bier ; 
The Man of Worth, and has not left his peer, 

Is in his * narrow house' for ever darkly low. 

Thee, Spring, again with joy shall others greet ; 
Me, mem'ry of my loss will only meet. 



MONODY 



A LADY FAMED FOR HER CAPRICE. 

How cold is that bosom which folly once fir'd, 
How pale is that cheek where the rouge late- 
ly glisten'd : 
How silent that tongue which the echoes oft 
tired, 
How dull is that car which to flattery so 
listened. 



If sorrow and anguish their exit aWait, 

From friendship and dearest affection re- 
moved ; 

How doubly severer, Eliza, thy fate, 

Thou diedst unwept, as thou livedst unloved. 

Loves, graces, and virtues, I call not on you ; 

So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a 
tear : 
But come, all ye offspring of folly so true, 

And flowers let us cull for Eliza's cold bier. 

We'll search through the garden for each silly 
flower, 
We'll roam through the forest for each idle 
weed; 
But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower, 

For none e'er approach'd her but rued the 
rash deed. 

We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the 
lay ; 
Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre ; 
There keen indignation shall dart on her prey. 
Which spurning contempt shall redeem from 
his ire. 



THE EPITAPH. 

Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect, 
What once was a butterfly gay in life's 
beam : 

Want only of wisdom denied her respect. 
Want only of goodness denied her esteem. 



* Robert Riddel, Esq. of Friar's Carsc, a very wor- 
thy character, and one to whom our bard thought 
himself under many obligations. 



ANSWER TO A MANDATE 

SENT BY THE SURVEYOR OF THE WINDOWS, 
CARRIAGES, &C. TO EACH FARMER, ORDER- 
ING HIM TO SEND A SIGNED LIST OF HIS 
HORSES, SERVANTS, WHEEL-CARRIAGKS, &C. 
AND WHETHER HE WAS A MARRIED MAN 
OR A BACHELOR, AND WHAT CHILDREN 
THEY HAD. 

Sir, as your mandate did request, 

I send you here a faithfu' list, 

My horses, servants, carts, and graith, 

To which I'm free to tak my aith. 

Imprimis, then, for carriage cattle, 

I hae four brutes o' gallant mettle. 

As ever drew before a pettle. 

My hand-afore,* a guid auld has been. 

And wight and wilfu' a' his days seen j 

My hand-a-hin,f a guid brown filly, 

Wha aft has borne me safe frae Kiliie ; \ 



* The fore-horse on the left-hand, in the plough, 
f The hindmost on the left-hand, in the plough. 
4 Kjiaaaiuock» 



POEMS. 



73 



And your aiild l)Oiough mony a time, 
lu ilays when ridiiii^ was nae ciiine : 
^ly fur-u-hhi,* a guid, grey beast, 
As e'er in tug or tow was traced : 
The fourth, a Highland Donald hasty, 
A d-nin'd red-wud, Kilburnie blastie. 
For-by a cowte, of covvtes the wale, 
As ever ran before a tall ; 
An' he be spared to be a beast, 
He'll draw me tifteea pund at least. 

Wheel carriages I hae but few, 
Three carts, and twa are feckly new. 
An auld wheel-barrow, mair for token, 
Ae leg and baith the trams are broken ; 
I made a poker o' the spindle, 
And my auld mither brunt the trundle. 
For men, I've three mischievous boys, 
Run-deils for rantin and for noise ; 
A gadsraan ane, a threslier t'other, 
Wee Davoc bauds the uowt in fother. 
I rule them, as I ought, discreetly, 
And often labour them completely. 
And aye on Sundays duly nightly, 
I on the questions tairge them tightly, 
'Till, faith; wee Davoc's grown sae gleg, 
(Tho' scarcely langer than my leg) 
He'll screed you aff effectual calling, 
As fast as ony in the dwalling. 

I've nane in female servant station, 
Lord keep me aye frae a' temptation ! 
I hae nae wife, and that ray bliss is, 
And ye hae laid nae tax on misses ; 
For weans I'm mair than weel contented, 
Heaven sent me ane mair than I wanted : 
My sonsie, smirking, dear-bought Bess, 
She stares the daddie in her face, 
Enough of ought ye like but grace. 
But her, my bonny, sweet, wee lady, 
I've said enough for her already. 
And if ye tax her or her mither, 
By the L — d ye'se get them a' thegither ! 

And now, remember, Mr. Aiken, 

Nae kind of license out I'm taking. 

Thro' dirt and dub for life I'll paidle. 

Ere I sae dear pay for a saddle ; 

I've sturdy stumps, the Lord be thankit ! 

And a' ray gates on foot I'll shank it. 

This list wi' my ain hand I've wrote it, 
The day and date as imder notet ; 
Then know all ye whom it concerns, 
Subacripsi huic, 

ROBERT BURNS. 



The hiiulmost on the right-hand, in the plough 



IMPROMPTU, 



S BIKTH-DAY, 



4th November, 1795. 

Old Winter with his frosty beard. 
Thus once to Jove his prayer jjreferv'd ; 
" What have I done of all the year. 
To bear this hated doom sever* ? 
]\[y cheerless sons no pleasure know ; 
Night's horrid car drags, dieary, slow : 
My dismal months no joys are crowning. 
But spleeny English hanging, drowning. 

Now, Jove, for once be mighty civil ; 

To counterbalance all this evil ; 

Give me, and I've no more to say. 

Give me Maria's natal day ! 

That brilliant gift will so enrich me, 

Spring, Summer, Autumn cannot match me 

" 'Tis done !" says Jove ; so ends my story, 

And Winter once rejoiced in glory. 



ADDRESS TO A LADY. 

Oh wert thou in tlie cauld blast. 

On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
My plaidie to the angry airt, 

I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee : 
Or did misfortune's bitter storms 

Around thee blaw, around thee blaw. 
Thy bield should be my bosom. 

To share it a', to share it a'. 

Or were I in the wildest waste, 

Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, 
The desert were a paradise. 

If thou wert there, if thou wert there. 
Or were I monarch o' the globe, 

Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign ; 
The brightest jewel in my crown 

Wad be my queen, wad be my queen. 



TO A YOUNG LADY, 



MISS JESSY L- 



OF DUMFRIES ; 



WITH BOOKS WHICH THE BARD PRESENTED HEIU 

Think be the volumes, Jessy fair. 
And with them take the poet's prayer ; 
That fate may in her fairest page, 
With every kindliest, best presage 
Of future bliss, enrol thy name : 
With native worth, and spotless fame. 
And wakeful caution, still aware 
Of ill — but chief, man's felon snare ; 
All blameless joys on earth we find, 
And all the treasures of the mind — 
These be thy guardian and reward ; 
So prays thy faithful friend, the bard. 



30 



74 



BURNS' WORKS. 



SONNET, 

WKITTEN ON THE 25tH JANUARY, 1793 THE 
BIRTH-DAY OF THE AUTHOR, ON HEARING A 
THRUSH SING IN A MORNING Wz\LK. 

SiNCr ou, sweet tlii'ush, upon the leafless bough, 
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain. 
See aged Winter 'mid his surly reign. 

At thy blythe carol clears his furrowed brow. 

So in lone poverty's dominion drear, 

Sits meek content with light unanxious heart, 
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part. 

Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear. 

I thank thee. Author of this opening day ! 

Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient 
skies ! 

Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys. 
What wealth could never give nor take away ! 

Yet come, thou child of poverty and care. 
The mite high heaven bestowed, that mite with 
thee I'll share. 



EXTEMPORE, 

TO MR. S Ej 

ON REFUSING TO DINE WITH HIM, AFTER HAV- 
ING BEEN PROMISED THE FIRST OF COM- 
PANY, AND THE FIRST OF COOKERY, 17th 
DECEMBER, 1795. 

No more of your guests, be they titled or not, 
And cookery the first in the nation : 

Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit, 
Is proof to all other temptation. 



TO MR. S— E. 

WITH A PRESENT OF A DOZEN OF PORTER. 

O HAD the malt thy strength of mind, 
Or hops the flavour of thy wit ; 

'Twere drink for first of human kind, 
A gift that e'en for S — e were fit. 

Jerusalem Tavern, Dumfries. 



POEM, 

ADDRESSED TO MR. MITCHELL, COLLECTOR OF 
EXCISE, DUMFRIES, 1796. 

Friend of the poet, tried and leal, 
Wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal ; 
Alake, alake, the meikle deil, 

Wi' a' his^ witches 
Arc at it, skclpin' ! jig and reel, 

In my poor poucLcj, 



J, modestly, fu' fain wad hint it. 
That one pound one, I sairly want it ; 
If wi' the liizzie down ye send it, 

It would be kind ; 
And while my heart wi' life-blood dunted 

I'd bear't in mind. 

So may the auld year gang out moaning 
To see the new come laden, groaning, 
Wi' double plenty o'er the loaning 

To thee and thine ; 
Domestic peace and comforts crowning 

The hail design. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

Ye've heard this while how I've been licket, 
And by fell death was nearly uicket : 
Grim loon ! he gat me by the fecket. 

And sair me sheuk ; 
But, by guid luck, I lap a wicket. 

And turn'd a neuk. 

But by that heaJth, I've got a share o't. 
And by that life I'm promised mair o't. 
My hale and weel I'll tak' a care o't 

A tentier way : 
Then farewell folly, hide and hair o't. 

For ance and aye. 



SENT TO A GENTLEMAN WHOM HE HAD 
OFFENDED. 

The fiiend whom wild from wisdom's way, 
The fumes of wine infuriate send ; 

(Not moony madness more astray) 
Who but deplores that hapless friend ? 

Wine was th' insensate frenzied part. 
Ah why should I such scenes outlive ! 

Scenes so abhorrent to my heart ! 
'Tis thine to pity and forgive. 



POEM ON LIFE, 

ADDRESSED TO COLONEL DE FEYSIER, 
DUMFRIES, 1796. 

My honoured colonel, deep I feel 

Your interest in the poet's weal ; 

j Ah ! how sma' heart hae I to sped 

The steep Parnassus, 
Surrounded thus by bolus pill. 

And potion glasses. 

O what a canty world were it, 

Would pain and care, and sickness spaic it : 

And fortune, favom-, worth, and merit. 

As they deserve ; 
(Aiid aye a' lowth, roast beef and claret ; 

Syne wha would starve) ? 



POEMS. 



75 



Dame life, tlio' fid.ion out may trick lier, 
Aud in paste gems and frippery deck her ; 
Oh ! flickering, feeble, and imsicker 

I've found her still, 
Aye wavering like the willow wicker, 

'Twceu good aud ill. 

Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan, 
Watches like baudrons by a rattan, 
Our sinfu' saul to get a clant on 

Wi' felon ire ; 
Syne, whip ! his tail ye'U ne'er cast saut oi 

He's aff like fire. 

Ah Nick ! ah Nick, it is na fair, 
First showing us the tempting ware. 
Bright wines and bonnie lasses rare. 

To put us daft ; 
Syne weave unseen thy spider's snare 

O hell's damn'd waft. 

Poor man, the flie, aft bizzes by, 
And aft as chance he comes thee nigh. 
Thy auld damn'd elbow yeuks wi' joy. 

And hellish pleasure ; 
Already in thy fancy's eye. 

Thy sicker treasure. 

Soon heels o'er gowdie ! in he gangs, 
And like a sheep-head on a tangs. 
Thy girning laugh enjoys his pangs 

And murdering wrestle. 
As dangling in the wind he hangs 

A gibbet's tassel 

But lest you think I am uncivil, 

To plague you with this drauuting drivel, 

Abjuring a' intentions evil, 

I quat my pen ; 
The Lord preserve us frae the devil ! 

Amen ! amen ! 



: ADDRESS TO THE TOOTH-ACHE. 

Mr curse upon your venom'd stang, 
That shoots my tortur'd gums alang ; 
And thro' my lugs gies mony a twang, 

Wi' gnawing vengeance ; 
Tearing my nerves wi ' bitter pang. 

Like racking engines ! 

When fevers burn, or ague freezes, 
Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes ; 
Our neighbour's sympathy may ease us, 

Wi' pitying moan ; 
But thee — thou hell o' a' diseases. 

Aye mocks our groan ! 

/\(lo\vn my beard tlie slavers trickle; 
I throw the wee stools o'er the nieikle. 
As rounrl the fire the giglets keckle, 

'J'o see me loup ; 
While raving nuid, 1 wish a heckle 

Were in their donp. 



O' a' the num'rous human dools, 
111 har'sts, daft bargains, cutty stools, 
Or worthy friends raked i' the mools, 
Sad sight to see ! 
-The tricks o' knaves or fash o' fools, 

-Thou bear'st the gree. 

Where'er that place be, priests ca' hell, 
Whence a' the tones o' mis'ry yell, 
And ranked plagues their numbers tell. 

In dreadfu' raw. 
Thou, TooTH-ACHE, surely bear'st the bell, 

Amang them a' ! 

O thou grim mischief-making chiel, 
That gars the notes o' discord squeel, 
'Till <l;ift mankind aft dance a reel 

In gore a shoe-thick ; — 
Gie a' the faes o' Scotland's weel 

A towraond's Tooth- Ache. 



TO ROBERT GRAHAM, Esq 

OF FINTKY, 
ON RECEIVING A FAVOUR. 

I CALL no goddess to inspire my strains, 
A fabled Muse may suit a bard that feigns ; 
Friend of my life ! my ardent spirit burns, 
And all the tribute of my heart returns. 
For boons accorded, goodness ever new, 
The gift still dearer as the giver you. 

Thou orb of day ! thou other paler light ! 
And all ye many sparkling stars of night ; 
If aught that giver from my mind efface ; 
If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace ; 
Then roll to me, along your wandering spheres, 
Only to number out a villain's years ! 



EPITAPH ON A FRIEND. 

An honest man here lies at rest. 
As e'er God with his image blest. 
The friend of man, the friend of triith ; 
The friend of age, and guide of youth : 
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm'd. 
Few heads with knowledge so inform'd : 
If there's another world, he lives in bliss ; 
If there is none, he made the best of this. 



A GRACE BEFORE DINNER. 

O Thou, who kindly dost provide 

For ev'ry creature's want ! 
We bless thee, God of nature wide, 

For all thy goodness lent j 



7G 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And if it please tliee, lieaveiily guide, 
May nevei' woi-se be sent ; 

But whether granted, or denied, 
Lord bless us with content ! 
Amen ! 



TO MY DEAR AND MUCH HONOURED FRIEND, 

MRS. DUNLOP, OF DUNLOP, 

ON SENSIBILITY. 

Sensibility how charming. 

Thou, my friend, canst truly tell ; 

But distress, with horrors arming. 
Thou hast also known too well ! 

Fairest flower, behold the lily, 

Blooming in the sunny ray ; 
Let the blast sweep o'er the valley, 

See it prostrate on the clay. 



Hear the wood-lark charm tlie forest, 
Telling o'er his little joys : 

Hapless bird ! a prey the surest, 
To each pirate of the skies. 

Dearly bought the hidden treasure, 
Finer feelings can bestow : 

Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure, 
Thrill the deepest notes of woe. 



A VERSE, 



COMPOSED AND REPEATED BY BURNS, TO THE 
MASTER OF THE HOUSE, ON TAKING LEAVE 
AT A PLACE IN THE HIGHLANDS WHERE HE 
HAD BEEN HOSPITABLY ENTERTAINED. 

When death's dark stream I ferry o'er ; 

A time that surely shall come ; 
In heaven itself, I'll ask no more. 

Than just a Highland welcome. 



ADDITIONAL PIECES OF POETRY, 

Frow the Reliques, Published in 1808, 

BY MR. CROMEK. 

The contributions were poured so copiously upon Dr. Currie that selection became a duty, and lie 
put aside several interesting pieces both in prose and verse, which would have done honour to 
the Poet's memory : But besides these there were other pieces extant, which did not come 
under the Doctor's notice : All of them, both of the rejected and discovered description, have 
since been collected and published by Mr. Cromek, whose personal devotion to the Poet, and 
generally to the poetry of his country, rendered him a most assiduous collector. The additional 
pieces of poetry so collected and published by Cromek, are given here. The additional songs 
and correspondence, taken from the Reliques and his more recent publication, " Select Scot- 
tish Songs," will each appear in the proper place.] 



ELEGY 

ON 

MR. WILLIAM CREECH, 

bookseller, EDINBURGH. 



AuLD chuckie Reekie's * sair distrefet, 
Down droops her ance weel burnish't crest, 
Nae joy her bonie buskit nest 

Can yield ava, 
Her darling bird that she loe's best, 

Willie's awa ! 



EdinjjurgU, 



11. 

O Willie was a witty wight. 

And had o' things an uuco' slight ; 

Auld Reekie ay he keepit tight. 

And trig an' braw ; 
But now they'll busk her like a fi'ight, 
Willie's awa ! 



IH. 

The stiffest o' them a' he bow'd, 
The bauldest o' them a' he cow'd ; 
They durst uae mair than he allow'd, 
That was a law : 
We've lost a birkie weel worth gowd, 
Willie's awa ! 



POEMS. 



77 



IV. 

Now gawkies, tawpios, gowks .lud fools 
Fiac colleges and Iwartling schools, 
May sprout like simmer piiddoc-k-stools 

In glen or shaw ; 
He wha could brush them down to mools 
"Willie's awa ! 

V. 

The breth'ren o' the Commercc-Chaumer 
May mourn their loss wi' doolfu' clamour 
He was a dictionar and grammar 

Amang them a' ; 
I fear they'll now mak mony a stammer 
Willie's awa ! 

VI. 

Nae mair we see his levee door 
Philosophers and Poets pour,t 
And toothy critics by the score 

In bloody raw ! 
The adjutant o' a' the core 

"Willie's awa ! 



VII. 

y's latin face, 

— 's modest grace ; 



Now worthy G- 

T r's and G 

M<K e, S 1, such a brace 

As Rome ne'er saw ; 
Tliey a' maun meet some ither place, 
Willie's awa ! 

VIII. 

Poor Burns — e'en Scotch drink canna quicken, 
He cheeps like some bewildered chicken, 
Scar'd frae it's minnie and the cleckin 
By hoodie-craw ; 
Grief's gien his heart an imco kickin*, 
Willie's awa ! 

IX. 

Now ev'ry sour-ttiou'd grinin' blellum, 
And Calvin's fock, are fit to fell him ; 
And self-conceited critic skellum 

His quill may draw ; 
He wha could brawlie ward their bellum 
Willie's awa ! 

X. 

Up wimpling stately Tweed I've sped. 
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed, 
And Ettrick banks now roaring red 

Whilo tempests blaw ; 
But every joy and pleasure's fled 

Willie's awa ! 

XL 

May I be slander's common speech ; 
A text for infamy to preach ; 



And lastly, streekit out to bleach 

In winter snaw ; 
When I forget thee I Wir.MK Creech, 
Tho' far awa^l 

XII. 

May never wicked fortune touzle hlra ! 
I\Iay never wicked men bamboozle him ' 
Until a pow as auld's Methusalem ! 

He canty claw ! 
Then to the blessed. New Jerusalem 

Fleet wing awa ! 



ELEGY 



ON 



PEG NICHOLSON.* 

Peg Nif'noi.soN was a good bay mare, 
As ever trode on aim ; 
But now she's floating down the Nith, 
And past the Mouth o' Cairn. 

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, 
And rode thro' thick and thin ; 
But now she's floating down the Nith, 
And wanting even the skin. 

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, 
And ance she bore a priest ; 
But now she's floating down the Nith, 
For Solway fish a feast. 

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare. 
And the priest lie rode her sair : 
And much oppressed and bruised she was 
—As priest-rid cattle are, &c. &c. 



* The Chamber of Commcrceof Edinburgh of which 
Mr. C. was Secretary. 

f Many literary gentlemen were accustomed to meet 
at Mr. Creech's house at breakfast. Bums often met 
with them there, when he called, and hence the name 
of Levee. 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 

(^Imperfect). 

[In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, the poet says :— The sub- 
ject is liberty: You know, my honoured friend 
how dear tho theme is to me. I design it an irregu- 
lar Ode for General Washington's birth-day. After 
having mentioned the degeneracy of other kingdoms 
I come to Scotland thusj : 

Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among. 
Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song. 

To thee I turn with swimming eyes ; 
WHiere is that soul of freedom fled ? 
Immingled with the mighty dead ! 

Beneath that hallowed turf where Wallace 
lies ! 



* Margaret Nicholson, the maniac, whose visitations 
very much alarmed George the I'liird for his life. In 
naming their steeds, liie i>oet and his friend Nicol seem 
to have had a preference, in tho way of tioing honour, 
of course, for the worthies who had used frei;dom with 

•x>ih priest nml king. 



78 



BURNS' WORKS, 



Hear it not, Wam.ack, in thy bed of death ! 

Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep ; 

Disturb not ye the hero's sleep, 
Nor give the coward secret breath. — 

Is this the power in freedom's war 

That wont to bid tlie battle rage ? 
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate, 

Crushing the despot's proudest bearing. 
That arm which, nerved with thundering fate. 

Braved usurpation's boldest daring ! 
One quenched in darkness like the sinking star, 
Ami one the palsied arm of i-ottcring, powerless 



A PRAYER—IN DISTRESS. 

O THOU Great Being ! what thou art 

Surpasses me to know ; 
Yet sure I am, that known to thee 

Are all thy works below. 

Thy creature here before thee stands, 

All wretched and distrest ; 
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul 

Obey thy high behest. 

Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act 

From cruelty or wrath ; 
O, free my weary eyes from tears, 

Or close them fast in death ! 

But if I must afflicted be. 

To suit some wise design ; 
Then man my soul with firm resolves 

To bear and not repine ! 



A PRAYER, 



%VHEN FAINTING FITS, AND OTHER ALARMING 
SYMPTOMS OF A PLEURISY OR SOME OTHER 
DANGEROUS DISORDER, WHICH INDEED 
STILL THREATENS ME, FIRST PUT NATURE 
ON THE ALARM. 

O THOU unknown, Almighty Cause 

Of all my hope and fear ! 
In whose dread presence, ere an hour. 

Perhaps I must appear. 

If I have wander'd in those paths 

Of life I ought to shun ; 
As soniefhinfj, loudly, in my breast, 

Remonstrates I have done ; 

Thou know'st that Thou hast formed mo 

With passions wild and strong ; 
And list'ning to their witching voice 

Has often led me wrong. 

Where human wealtneas has come short, 
Or frail tij stept aside, 



Do Thou, All Good ! for such Thou art, 
In shades of darkness hide. 

Where with intention I have err'd, 

No other plea I have, 
Biit, Thou art good ,- and goodness still 

Delighteth to forgive. 



DESPONDENCY; 

A HYMN. 

Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene ! 

Have I so found it full of pleasing charms ! 
Some drops of joy with draughts of ill be- 
tween : 

Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing 
storms : 
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms ? 

Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode ? 
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms ; 

I tremble to approach an angry God, 
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod. 

Fain would I say, ' Forgive my foul offence !' 

Fain promise never more to disobey ; 
But, should my author health again dispense, 

Again I might desert fair virtue's way ; 
Again in folly's path might go astray ; 

Again exalt the brute and sink the man ; 
Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray, 

Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan ? 
Who sin so oft have mourn'd yet to temptation 
ran? 

O Thou, great governor of all below ! 

If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee, 
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, 

Or still the tumult of the raging sea ; 
With that controling pow'r assist ev'n me, 

Those headlong furious passions to confine ; 
For all unfit I feel my powers to be, 

To rule their torrent in th' allowed line, 
O, aid me with thy help, Omnipotence Divine f 



LINES ON RELIGION. 

" 'Tis this, my fiiend, that streaks our morning 

bright ; 
'Tis this, that gilds the horror of our night ! 
When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are 

few ; 
When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue ; 
'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart, 
Disarms affliction, or repels its dart : 
Within the breast bids purest raptures rise. 
Bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless 

skies." 



POEMS. 



79 



EPISTLES IN VERSE 



TO J. LAPRAIK. 



1785. 



Sept. \3th, 
Gvix) speed au' finder to you Joliny, 
Guid health, hale han's, an' weather bony ; 
Now when ye're nlckan down fu' canny 

The staff o' bread, 
May ye ne'er want a stoup o' brany 

To clear your head. 

j\Iay Boreas never thresh your rigs, 
Nor kick your rickles aff their legs, 
Sendin' the stuff o'er muirs an' haggs 

Like drivin' wrack ; 
But may the tapmast grain that wags 

Come to the sack. 

I'm bizzie too, an' skelpin' at it, 

But bitter, daudin showers hae wat it, 

Sae my auld stumpie pen I gat it 

Wi' rauckle wark, 
An' took my jocteleg * an' whatt it, 

Like ony dark. 

It's now twa month that I'm your debtor. 
For your braw, nameless, dateless letter, 
Abusin' me for harsh ill nature 

On holy men. 
While deil a hair yoursel ye're better. 

But mair profane. 

But let the kirk-folk ring their bells, 
Let's sing about our noble sels ; 
We'll cry nae jads frae heathen hills 

To help, or roose us, 
But browster wives f an' whisky stills, 

Thei/ are the muses. 

Your friendship Sir, I winna quat it. 

An' if ye mak' objections at it, 

Then han' in nieve some day we'll knot it, 

An' witness take, 
An' when wi' Usquabae we've wat it 

It winna break. 

But if the beast and branks he spar'd 
Till kye be gaun without the herd. 
An' a' the vittel in the yard. 

An' theekit right, 
I mean your ingle-side to guard 

Ae winter night. 

'I'heu nuise-inspirin' aqua-vita) 

8haU make us baith sae blythe an' witty, 

Till ye forget ye're aidd an' gatty, 

An' be as canty 
As ye were nine year less than thretty. 

Sweet ane-an'-twenty. 



But stooks are cowpet * wi' the bki&t, 
An' now the sinn keeks in the west 
Then I maun rin amang the rest 

An' quat my chanter ; 
Sae I subscribe mysel In haste, 

Your's, Rab the Ranter. 



TO THE 

REV. JOHN M'MATH, 

INCLOSING A COrV OF HOLY WILLIe's PKAYEK, 
WHICH HE HAD KEUUESTEn. 

Sept. \1lh, 1785. 
While at the stook the shearers cow'r 
To shun the bitter blaudiu' show'r, 
Or in gulravage f rinnin scow'r 

To pass the time, 
To you I dedicate the hour 

In idle rhyme. 

My musle, tir'd wi' mony a sonnet 

On gown, an' ban', an' douse black bonnet, 

Is grown right eerie now she's done it, 

Lest they shou'd blame hei , 
An' rouse their holy thunder on it 

And anathem her. 

I own 'twas rash, an' rather hardy. 
That I, a simple, countra bardie, 
Shou'd meddle wi' a pack sae sturdy, 

WTia, if they ken me. 
Can easy, wi' a single wordie, 

Louse h-11 upon me. 

But 1 gae mad at their grimaces, 

Their sighan, cantan, grace-proud faces. 

Their three-mile prayers, an hauf-mile graces, 

Their raxan conscience, 
Whaws gi'eed, revenge, an' pride disgraces 

Waur nor their nonsense. 

There's Gaun, \ miska't waur than a beast, 
Wha has mair honor in his breast 
Than mony scores as guid's the priest 

Wha sae abus't him. 
An' may a bard no crack his jest 

What way they've use't him. 

Sec him, |j the poor man's friend in need. 
The gentleman in word an' deed, 
An' shall his fame an' honour bleea 

By worthless skellums, 
An' not a muse erect her head 

To CO we the blellums ? 



* Jodcleg—a, knife, 
t Urowstcr lyiwi—Alcliousc wives. . 



♦ Cowpet — Tumbled over. 

t Gidravage — Runiiiiifj in a confused, disorderly 
manner, like boys when leaving school. 

X Oavin Hamilton, Esq. 

II The poet has introduced (ho two first lines of tins 
sUiuza into the dedieatiou of his works to Mr. Hamil- 
ton. 



80 



O Pope, had I thy satire's darto 
To gie the rascals their deserts, 
I'd rip their rotten, hullow hearts. 

An' tell aloud 
Their jugglin' hocus-pocus arts 

To cheat the crowd. 

God knows, I'm no the thing I shou'd be, 
Nor am I ev'n the thing I cou'd be. 
But twenty times, I rather wou'd be 

An atheist clean. 
Than under gospel colours hid be 

Just for a screen. 

An honest man may like a glass. 
An honest man may like a lass, 
But mean revenge, an' malice fause 

He'll still disdain, 
An' then cry zeal for gospel laws, 

Like some we ken. 

They take religion in their moutli ; 
They talk o' mercy, grace, an' truth, 
For what ? to gie their malace skouth 

On some puir wight, 
An' hunt him down, o'er right an' ruth, 

To ruin streight. 

All hail, religion ! maid divine ! 
Pardon a muse sae mean as mine. 
Who in her rough imperfect line 

Thus daurs to name thee ; 
To stigmatize false friends of thine 

Can ne'er defame thee. 

Tho' blotch't an' foul wi' mony a stain, 

An' far unworthy of thy train, 

With trembling voice I tune my strain 

To join with those, 
Who boldly dare thy cause maintain 

In spite of foes : 

Jn spite o' crowds, in spite o' mobs, 
In spite of undermining jobs, 
In spite o' dark banditti stabs 

At worth an' merit, 
By scoundrels, even wi' holy robes. 

But hellish spiiit. 

O Ayr, my dear, my native ground, 
Within thy presbyterial bound 
A candid lib'ral band is found 

Of public teachers. 
As men, as Christians too renown'd 

An' manly preachers. 

Sir, in that circle you are nam'd ; 
Sir, in that circle you are fam'd ; 
An' some, by whom your doctrine's blam'd, 

(Wliich gies you honor) 
Even Sir, by them your heart's esteem'd. 

An' winning-manner. 

Pardon this freedom I have ta'en, 
An' if impertinent I've been, 



BURNS* WORKS. 

Impute it not 



ood Sir, in ane 
Wbase heart ne'er wrang'd ye, 
But to his utmost would befriend 

Ought that belang'd ye. 



TO GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. 

mauchline. 

(rkcommending a boy). 

MosgavUle, May 3, 1786. 
I HOLD it. Sir, my bounden duty 
To wain you how that IMaster Tootie, 

Alias, Laird M'Gaun,* 
Was here to hire yon lad away 
'Bout whom ye spak the tither day, 

An' wad hae don't aff han' : 
But lest he learn the callan tricks, 

As faith I muckle doubt him, 
Like scrapin' out auld Crummie's nicks. 
An' tellin' lies about them ; 
As lieve then I'd have then. 

Your clerkship he should sair. 
If sae be, ye may be 
Not fitted otherwhere. 

Altho' I say't, he's gleg enough, 

An' 'bout a house that's rude an' rough, 

The boy might learn to swear ; 
But then wi' yo^i, he'll be sae taught. 
An' get sic fair example straught, 

I hae ua ony feai'. 
Yc'll catechise him every quirk, 

An' shore him weel wi' hell; 

An' gar him follow to the kirk 

— Ay when ye gang yoursel. 
If ye then, maun be then 

Frae hame this comin Friday, 
Then please Sir, to lea'e Sir, 
The orders wi' your lady. 

iNIy word of honour I hae gieu. 

In Paisley John's, that night at e'en, 

To meet the Warld's worm ; 
To try to got the twa to gree, 
An' name the airles f an' the fee, 

In legal mode an' form : 
I ken he weel a Snick can draw, 

When simple bodies let himj 
An' if a Devil be at a'. 

In faith he's sure to get liini. 
To phrase you au' praise you. 

Ye ken your Laureat scorns : 
The pray'r still, you share still, , 
Of grateful Minstrel Burns. 



* Master Tootie then lived in Mauchline; a dealer 
in Cows. It was his common practice to cut the nicks 
or markings from the honis of cattle, to disguise their 
age. — lie was an artful trick-contriving character; 
hence he is called a Snkk-drawer. In the poet's 
"Address to tli£ Deil" he styles that august personage 
an aidd, snick-drawitif,' dog ! 

t The ^iir/M—Eaniest money. 



POEMS. 



81 



TO MR. M'ADAM, 

OF CRAIGEN-GILLAN, 

IN ANSWER TO AN OBLIGING LETTEK HE SENT 

IN THE COMMENCEMENT OF MY POETIC 

CAREER. 

Sir, o'er a gill I gat your card, 

I trow it made me proud ; 
See wha taks notice o' the bard ! 

I lap and cry'd fu' loud. 

Now deil- ma-care about their jaw, 

The senseless, gawky million ; 
I'll cock my nose aboon them a', 

I'm roos'd by Craigen-Gillan ! 

'Twas noble, Sir ; 'twas like yoursel, 

To grant your high protection : 
A great man's smile, ye ken fu' well, 

Is ay a blest infection. 

Tho', by his • banes wha in a tub 

Match'd Macedonian Sandy ! 
On ray ain legs thro' dirt and dub, 

I independent stand ay — 

And when those legs to gude, warm kail, 

Wi' welcome canna bear me ; 
A lee dyke-side, a sybow-tail, 

And barley-scone shall cheer me. 

Heaven spare you lang to kiss the breath 

O' mony flow'ry simmers ! 
And bless your bonie lasses baith, 

I'm tald they're loosome kimraers ! 

And God bless young Dunaskin's laird, 

The blossom of our gentry ! 
And may he wear an auld man's beard, 

A credit to his country. 



TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL, 

GLENRIDDEL, 
(extempore LINES ON RETURING A 

newspaper). 

Ellisland, Monday Evening. 
Your news and review. Sir, I've read through 
and tlirough, Sir, 
With little admiring or blaming : 
The papers are barren of home-news or foreign, 
No murders or rapes worth the naming. 

Our friends the reviewers, those cliippers and 
liewers, 

Are judges of mortar and stone, Sir ; 
But oi meet, or unmeet, in -^ fabric complete, 

I'll boldly pronounce they are none. Sir. 



Diogenes. 



IMy goose-quill too rude is to tell all your good- 
ness 

Bestowed on your servant, the Poet ; 
Would to God I had one like a beam of the sun. 

And then all the world, Sir, should know it ! 



TO TERRAUGHTY,* 

ON HIS BIRTH-DAY. 

Health to the Maxwells' vet'ran Chief! 
Health, ay unsour'd by care or grief : 
Inspir'd, I turn'd Fate's sybil leaf. 

This natal morn, 
I see thy life is stuif o' prief, 

Scarce quite half worn.— 

This day thou metes threescore eleven, 
And I can tell that bounteous Heaven 
(The second sight, ye ken, is given 

To ilka Poet) 
On thee a tack o' seven times seven 

Will yet bestow it. 

If envious buckies view wi' sorrow 

Thy lengthen'd days on this blest morrow, 

May desolation's lang-teeth'd harrow. 

Nine miles an hour. 
Rake them, like Sodom and Gomorrah, 

In brunstane stoure — 

But for thy friend-s, and they are mony, 
Baith honest men and lasses bonie, 
May couthie fortune, kind and cannie. 

In social glee, 
Wi' mornings biythe and e'enings funny 

Bless them and thee. 

Farweel, auld birkie ! Lord be near ye. 
And then the Deil he daurna steer ye 
Your friends ay love, your faes ay fear ye, 

For me, shame fa' me, 
If neist my heart I dinna wear ye 

While Burns they ca' me. 



THE VOWELS 

A TALE. 



thong 



'TwAS where the birch and sounding 
are ply'd, 
The noisy domicile of pedant pride ; 
Where ignorance her darkening vapour throws. 
And cruelty directs the thickening blows ; 



* Mr. Maxwell, of Terraughty, near Dumfries. 
This is the J. P. who, at the Excise Courts, calJed for 
Burns's reports : they shewed that he, while he acted 
up to the law, could reconcile his duty with humatli : 
ty. • Altho' an Exciseman he had a heart.' 

31 



m 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Upon a time, Sir Abece the great, 

In all his pedagogic powers elate, 

His awful chair of state resolves to raouut, 

And call the trembling vowels to account.— 

First enter'd A, a grave, broad, solemn wight, 
But ah ! deform'd, dishonest to the sight ! 
His twisted head look'd backward on his way. 
And flagrant from the scourge he grunted ai ! 

Reluctant, E stalk'd In ; with piteous race 
The justling tears I'an down his honest face ! 
That name, that well-worn name, and all his 

own, 
Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne ! 
The pedant stifles keen the Roman sound, 
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound ; 
And next the title following close behind, 
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assign'd. 

The cobweb'd gothic dome resounded, Y ! 
In sullen vengeance, I, dlsdain'd reply : 
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round. 
And knock'd the groaning vowel to the ground ! 

In rueful apprehension enter'd O, 
The wailing minstrel of despairing woe ; 
Th' Inquisitor of Spain, the most expert, 
Might there have learnt new my>>teries of his art: 
So grim, deform'd, with horrors entering U, 
His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew ! 

As trembling U stood staring all aghast, 
The pedant in his left hand clutch'd him fast. 
In helpless infants' tears he dipp'd his right, 
Baptiz'd him cm, and kick'd him from his sight. 



A SKETCH. 

A LITTLE, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight, 
And still his precious self his dear delight : 
Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets, 
Better than e'er the fairest she he meets. 
A man of fashion too, he made his tour, 
Learn'd vive la bagatelle, et vive V amour ; 
So traveird monkies their grimace improve, 
Polish their grin, nay sigh for ladies' love. 
!Much specious lore but little understood ; 
Fineering oft outshines the solid wood : 
His solid sense — by inches you must tell, 
But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell ; 
His meddling vanity, a busy fiend, 
Still makinjir work his selfish craft must mend. 



TO THE OWL 



BY JOHN M'CHEDDIE. 



Is it some blast that gathers in the ndrth. 
Threat' ning to nip the verdure of thy bow'r ? 

Is it, sad owl, that autumn strips the shade. 
And leaves thee here, unshelter'd and forlorn ? 

Or fear that winter will thy nest invade ? 
Or friendless melancholy bids thee mourn ? 

Shut out, lone bird, from all the feather'd train, 
To tell thy soiTOWs to th' unheeding gloom 

No friend to pity when thou dost complain. 
Grief all thy thought, and solitude thy home. 

Sing on sad mourner ! I will bless thy strain, 
And pleas'd in sorrow listen to thy song : 

Sing on sad mourner ! to the night complain, 
While the lone echo wafts thy notes along. 

Is beauty less, when down the glowing cheek 
Sad, piteous tears in native sorrows fall ? 

Less kind the heart when anguish bids it break ? 
Less happy he who lists to pity's call ? 

Ah no, sad owl ! nor is thy voice less sweet, 
That sadness tunes it, and that grief is there ; 

That spring's gay notes, unskill'd, thou canst 
repeat ; 
That sorrow bids thee to the gloom repair : 

Nor that the treble songsters of the day, 

Are quite estranged, sad bird of night ! firom 
thee ; 

Nor that the thrush deserts the evening spray, 
When darkness calls thee from thy reverie. — « 

From some old tow'r, thy melancholy dome. 
While the gray walls and desert solitudes ,• 

Return each note, responsive to the gloom 
Of ivied coverts and surrounding woods ; 

There hooting ; I will list more pleas'd to thee. 
Than ever lover to the nightingale ; 

Or drooping wi'etch, oppress'd with misery, 
Lending his ear to some condoling tale. 



L 



Sad bird of night, what sorrow calls thee forth, 
To vent thy plaints thus in the midnight 
hour ? 



EXTEMPORE, 

IN THE COURT OF SESSION. 

Tune—" Gillicrankie." 
Lord Advocate, Robert Dundas. 

He clench'd his pamphlets in his fist, 

He quoted and he hinted. 
Till in a declamation-mist, 

His argument he tint it : 
He gaped for't, he graped for't, 

He fand it was awa, man ; 
But what his common sense came shorty 

He eked out wi' law, raan» 



POEMS. 



83 



Mr. Henry Erskine. 

Collected Harry stood awee, 

Then opeii'd out his arm, man ; 
His lordship sat \vi' ruefu' e'e, 

And ey'd the gathering storm, man : 
Like wind-driv'n hail it did assail, 

Or torrents owre a lin, man ; 
The Bench sae wise lift up their eyes, 

Half-wauken'd \vl' the din, man. 



ON HEARING THAT THERE WAS FALSEHOOD IN 
THE REV, DR. B ^"s VERY LOOKS. 

That there is falsehood in his looks 

I must and will deny : 
They say their master is a knave — 

And sure they do not lie. 



ADDRESS 

TO GENERAL DUMOURIER. 

(a parody on robin adair). 

You're welcome to Despots, Dumourier ; 

You're Avelcome to Despots, Dumourier — 

How does Danipi^re do ? 

Aye, and Bournonville too ? 

Why did they not come along with you, Du- 



i v/ill fi'j;ht France with you, Dumourier, — 
i will fight France with you, Dumourier : — 
I will fight France with you, 
I will take my chance with you ; 
By my soul I'll dance a dance with you, Dumou- 
rier. 



Then k't us fight ahout. Dumourier ; 

Then lot us fight about, DmTionrier ; 

Then let us fight about, 

'Till freedom's spark is out, 

Thcu we'll be d-mned no doubt — Dumourier. 



EXTEMPORE EFFUSIONS. 

[The Poet paid a visit on horsclwik to Carlisle: while 
ho was at table his steed was turned out to graze in 
an onolosure, but wandered, probably in quest of 
better pasture, into an adjoining one : it was im- 
pounded by order of tlie Mayor — whose term of of- 
fice expired next day : — The Muse thus delivered 
herself on the occasion] : 

Was e'er puir poet sae befitted. 
The niaister drunk — the horse committed ; 
Puir harmless beast ! take thee nae care, 
Thou'lt be a horse, when he's nae mair-( mayor). 



TO A FRIEND, 

with a pound of snuff. 

O could I give thee India's wealth, 

As I this trifle send ; 
Why then the joy of both would be, 

To share it with a friend. 

But golden sands ne'er yet have graced 

The Heliconian stream ; 
Then take what gold can never buy, 

An honest Bard's esteem. 



* It is almost needless to observe that the song of 
Robin Adair, begins thus : — 

You're welcome to Paxton, Robin Adair ; 
You're welcome to Paxton, Robin Adair. — 
How does Johnny Mackerell tlo ? 
Aye, and Luke Gardener too? 
A\hydid they not come along with you, Robin 
Adair ? 



ESSAY 

UPON 

SCOTTISH POETRY, 

INCLUDING THE POETRY OF BURNS, 

BY DR. CURRIE 



That Burns had not the advantages of a clas- 
sical education, or of any degree of acquaintance 
with the Greek or Roman writers in their ori- 
ginal dress, has appeared in the history of his 
life. He acquired indeed some knowledge of the 
French language, but it does not appear that he 
was ever much conversant in French literature, 
nor is there any evidence of his having derived 
any of his poetical stories from that source. 
"With the English classics he became well ac- 
quainted iu the course of his life, and the effects 
of this acquaintance are observable in his latter 
productions ; but the character and style of his 
poetry were formed very early, and the model 
which he followed, in as far as he can be said to 
have had one, is to be sought for in the works 
of the poets who have written in the Scottish 
dialect — iu the works of such of them more es- 
pecially, as are familiar to the peasantry of Scot- 
land. Some observations on these may form a 
proper introduction to a more particular exami- 
nation of the poetry of Burns. The studies of 
the editor in this direction are indeed very re- 
cent and very imperfect. It would have been 
imprudent for him to have entered on this sub- 
ject at all, but for the kindness of Mr. Ramsay 
of Ochtertyre, whose assistance be is proud to 
acknowledge, and to whom the reader must as- 
cribe whatever is of any value in the following 
imperfect sketch of literary compositions in the 
Scottish idiom. 

It is a circumstance not a little curious, and 
which does not seem to be satisfactorily explain- 
ed, that in the thirteenth century the language 
of the two British nations, if at all different, 
differed only in dialect, the Gaelic in the one, 
like the Welch and Armoric in the other, being 
confined to the mountainous districts.* The 
English under the Edwards, and the Scots under 
Wallace and Bruce, spoke the same language. 
We may observe also, that in Scotland the his- 
tory ascends to a period nearly as remote as in 
England. Barbour and Blind Harry, James the 
First, Dunbai", Douglas, and Lindsay, who liv- 



• Historical Essays on Scottish Sor^, p. 20, by Mr. 
Ritson. 



ed in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth cen- 
turies, were coeval with the fathers of poetry in 
England ; and in the opinion of Mr. Wharton, 
not inferior to them in genius or in composition. 
Though the language of the two countries gra- 
dually deviated from each other during this pe- 
riod, yet the difference on the whole was not 
considerable ; nor perhaps greater than between 
the different dialects of the different parts of 
England in our own time. 

At the death of James the Fifth, in 1542, the 
language of Scotland was in a flourishing condi- 
tion, wanting only writers in prose equal to those 
in verse. Two circumstances, propitious on the 
whole, operated to prevent this. The first was 
the passion of the Scots for composition in La- 
tin ; and the second, the accession of James the 
Sixth to the Ennlish throne. It may easily be 
imagined, that it Buchanan had devoted his ad- 
mirable talents, even in part, to the cultivation of 
his native tongue, as was done by the revivers of 
letters in Italy, he would have left compositions 
in that language which might have excited other 
men of genius to have followed his exaraple,f 
and give duration to the language itself. The 
union of the two crowns in the person of James, 
overthrew all reasonable expectation of this kind. 
That monarch, seated on the English throne, 
would no longer be addressed in the rude dia- 
lect in which the Scottish clergy had so often 
insulted his dignity. He encouraged Latin or 
English only, both of which he prided himself 
on writing with purity, though he himself never 
could acquire the English pronunciation, but 
spoke with a Scottish idiom and intonation to 
the last. Scotsmen of talents declined writing in 
their native language, which they knew was not 
acceptable to their learned and pedantic mo- 
narch ; and at a time wlien national prejudice 
and enmity prevailed to a great degree, they dis- 
dained to study the nicities of the English tongue, 
though of so much easier acquisition than a 
dead language. Lord Stirling and Drummond 
of Hawthornden, the ordy Scotsmen who wrote 



t e- g' The Authors of the JDelicice Poetarum Scoto. 
rum, Sfc. 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



8: 



poetry ia those times, were exceptions. They 
studied the language of England, and competed 
in it with precision and elegance, They were 
however the last of their countrymen wlio de- 
served to be considered as poets in that century. 
The muses of Scotland sunk into silence, and 
did not again raise their voices for a period of 
eighty years. 

To what causes are we to attribute this ex- 
treme depression among a people comparatively 
learned, enteq)rising, and ingenious ? Shall 
we impute it to the fanaticism of the covenan- 
ters, or to the tyranny of the house of Stuart 
after their restoration to the throne ? Dou'jt- 
less these causes operated, but they seem un- 
equal to account for the effect. In England si- 
milai" distractions iind oppressions took place, yet 
poetry flourished there in a remarkable degree. 
During this period, Cowley, and Waller, and 
Dryden sung, and Milton raised Ills strain of un- 
paralleled grandeur. To the causes already 
mentioned, another must be added, in account- 
ing for the torpor of Scottish literature — the 
want of a proper vehicle for men of genius to 
employ. The civil Wiirs had frightened away 
the Latin muses, and no standard had been es- 
tablished of the Scottish tongue, which was de- 
viating still farther from the pure English idiom. 

The revival of literature in Scotland may be 
dated from the establishment of the union, or 
rather fi-om the extinction of the rebellion in 
1715. The nations being finally incorporated, 
it was clearly seen that their tongues must in 
the end incorporate also ; or rather indeed that 
the Scottish language must degenerate into a 
provincial idiom, to be avoided by those who 
would aim at distinction in letters, or rise to 
eminence in the united legislature. 

Soon after this, a band of men of genius ap- 
peared, who studied the English classics, and 
imitated their beauties in the same manner as 
they studied the classics of Greece and Rome. 
They had admirable models of composition late- 
ly presented to them by the writers of the reign 
of Queen Anne ; particularly in the periodical 
papers published by Steele, Addison, and their 
associated friends, which circulated widely 
through Scotland, and diffused every where a 
taste for purity of style and sentiment, and for 
critical disquisition. At length, the Scottish 
writers succeeded in English composition, and a 
union was formed of the literary talents, as well 
as of the legislatures of the two nations. On 
this occasion the poets took the lead. While 
Henry Home,* Dr. Wallace, and their learned 
associates, were only laying in their intellectual 
stores, and studying to dear themselves of their 
Scottish idioms, Thomson, Mallet, and Hamil- 
ton of Bangour, had made their appearance be- 
fore the public, and been enrolled on the list of 
English poets. The writers in prose followed 
—a nuroerous and powerful band, and poured 
their ample stores into the general stream of Bri- 



* Lord Kaims. 



tish literature. Scotland possessed her four unu. 
versities before the accession of James to the 
English throne. Immediately before the union, 
she acquired her parochial schools. These es- 
tablishments combining happily together, made 
the elements of knowledge of easy acquisition, 
and presented a direct path, by which the ar- 
dent student might bo carried along into the le- 
cesses of science or learning. As civil broils 
ceased, and faction and prejudice gradually died 
away, a wider field was opened to literary ambi- 
tion, and the influence of the Scottish institu- 
tions for instruction, on the productions of the 
press, became moie and more apparent. 

It seems indeed probable, that the establish- 
ment of the parochial schools produced effects 
on the rural muse of Scotland also, which have 
not hitherto been suspected, and which, though 
less splendid in their nature, are not however 
to be regarded as trivial, whether we consider 
the happiness or the morals of the people. 

There is some reason to believe, that the 
original inhabitants of the British isles possessed 
a peculiar and interesting species of music, 
which being banished from the plains by the 
successive invasions of the Saxons, Danes, and 
Normans, was preserved with the native race, 
in the wilds of Ireland and in the mountains of 
Scotland and Wales. The Irish, the Scottish, 
and the Welsh music, differ indeed from each 
other, but the difference may be considered as 
in dialect only, and probably produced by the 
influence of time, like the different dialects of 
their common language. If this conjecture be 
true, the Scottish music must be more imme- 
diately of a Highland origin, and the Lowland 
tunes, though now of a character somewhat dis- 
tinct, must have descended from the mountains 
in remote ages. Whatever credit may be given 
to conjectures, evidently involved in great un- 
certainty, there can be no doubt that the Scot- 
tish peasantry have been long in possession of a 
number of songs and ballads composed in their 
native dialect, and snng to their native music. 
The subjects of these compositions were such as 
most interested the simple inhabitants, and in 
the succession of time varied probably as the 
condition of society varied. During the sepa- 
ration and the hostility of the two nations, these 
songs and ballads, as far as our imperfect docu- 
ments enable us to judge, were chiefly warlike ; 
such as the Iluntis of Cheviot, and the Batth 
of Harlatv. After the union of the two crowns, 
when a certain degree of peace and tranquillity- 
took place, the rural muse of Scotland breathed i 
in softer accents. " In the want of real evi- 
dence respecting the history of our songs," says 
Ramsay of Ochtertyre, " recourse may be had 
to conjecture. One would be disposed to think, 
that the most beautiful of the Scottish tunes 
were clothed with new words after the union 
of the crowns. The inhabitants of the borders, 
who had formerly been warriors from choice, 
and husbandmen from necessity, either quitted 
the country, or were transformed into real shep- 



86 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



herds, easy in their circumstances, and satisfied 
with their lot. Some sparks of that spirit of 
chivahy for which they are celebrated by Frois- 
sart, remained sufficient to inspire elevation of 
sentiment and gallantry towards the fiiir sex. 
The familiarity and kindness which had long 
subsisted between the gentry and the peasantry, 
could not all at on^je be obliterated, and this 
connexion tended to sweeten rural life. In this 
state of innocence, ease, and tranquillity of 
mind, the love of poetry and music would still 
maintain its ground, though it would naturally 
assume a form congenial to the more peaceful 
state of society. The minstrels, whose metrical 
tales used once to rouse the borderers like the 
trumpet's sound, had been, by an order of the 
Legislature (1579), classed with rogues and va- 
gabonds, and attempted to be suppressed. Knox 
and his disciples influenced the Scottish parlia- 
ment, but contended in vain with her rural 
muse. Amidst our Arcadian vales, probably 
on the banks of the Tweed, or some of its tri- 
butary streams, one or more original geniuses 
may have arisen who were destined to give a 
new turn to the taste of their countrymen. 
They would see that the events and pursuits 
which chequer private life were the proper sub- 
jects for popular poetry. Love, which had for- 
merly held a divided sway with glory and am- 
bition, became now the master-passion of the 
soul. To portray in lively and delicate colours, 
though with a hasty hand, the hopes and fears 
that agitate the breast of the love-sick swain, 
or forlorn maiden, aiford ample scope to the 
rural poet. Love-songs, of which Tibullus 
himself would not have been ashamed, might 
be composed by an uneducated rustic with a 
slight tincture of letters ; or if in these songs 
the character of the rustic be sometimes assum- 
ed, the truth of chai-acter, and the language of 
nature, are preserved. With unaffected sim- 
plicity and tenderness, topics are urged, most 
likely to soften the heart of a cruel and coy 
mistress, or to regain a fickle lover. Even in 
such as are of a melancholy cast, a ray of hope 
breaks through, and dispels the deep and settled 
gloom which characterizes the sweetest of the 
Highland luinags, or vocal airs. Nor are these 
songs all plaintive ; many of them are lively 
and humorous, and some appear to us coarse 
and indelicate. They seem, however, genuine 
descriptions of the manners of an energetic and 
«equestered people in their hours of mirth and 
festivity, though in their portraits some objects 
are brought into open view, which more fasti- 
dious painters would have tiirown into shade. 

" As those rural poets sung for amusement, 
not for gain, their effusions seldom exceeded a 
3ove-song, or a ballad of satire or humour, 
■which, like the words of the elder minstrels, 
were seldom committed to writing, but trea- 
sured up in the memory of their friends and 
neighbour?. Neither known to the learned nor 
patronized by the great, these rustic bards lived 
3Qd died ia obscurity ; and by a strange fatality, 



their story, and even their very names have 
been forgotten. When proper models for pas- 
toral songs were produced, there would be no 
want of imitators. To succeed in this species 
of composition, soundness of understanding and 
sensibility of heart were more requisite than 
flights of imagination or pomp of numbers. 
(jreat changes have certainly taken place in 
Scottish song- writing, though we cannot trace 
the steps of this change ; and few of the pieces 
admired in Queen Mary's time are now to be 
discovered in modern collections. It is possible, 
though not probable, that the music may have 
remained nearly the same, though the words to 
the tunes were entirely new-modelled." 

These conjectures are highly ingenious. It 
cannot, however, be presumed, that the state of 
ease and tranquillity described by Mr. Ramsay 
took place among the Scottish peasantry imme- 
diately on the union of the crowns, or indeed 
during the greater part of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. The Scottish nation, through all ranks, 
was deeply agitated by the civil wars, and the 
religious persecutions which succeeded each 
other in that disastrous period ; it was not till 
after the revolution in 1688, and the subsequent 
establishment of their beloved form of church 
government, that the peasantry of the Lowlands 
enjoyed comparative repose ; and it is since that 
period that a great number of the most admired 
Scottish songs have been produced, though the 
tunes to which they are sung, are in general of 
much greater antiquity. It is not unreasonable 
to suppose, that the peace and security derived 
from the Revolution, and the Union, produced 
a favourable change on the rustic poetry of 
Scotland ; and it can scarcely be doubted, that 
the institution of parish schools in 1696, by 
which a certain degree of instiuction was dif- 
fused universally among the peasantry, contri- 
buted to this happy effect. 

Soon after this appeared Allan Ramsay, the 
Scottish Theocritus. He was born on the high 
mountains that divide Clydesdale and Annan- 
dale, in a small hamlet by the banks of Glengo- 
nnr, a stream which descejids into the Clyde. 
The ruins of this hamlet are still shown to the 
inquiring traveller. He was the son of a pea- 
sant, and probably received such instruction as 
his parish-school bestowed, and the poverty of 
his parents admitted. Ramsay made his ap- 
pearance in Edinburgh, in the beginning of the 
present century, in the humble character of an 
apprentice to a barber ; he was then fourteen or 
fifteen years of age. By degrees he acquired 
notice for his social disposition, and his talent 
for the composition of verses in the Scottish 
idiom ; and, changing his profession for that of 
a bookseller, he became intimate with many of 
the literary, as well as the gay and fashionable 
characters of his time.* Having published a 



* " He was coeval with Joseph Mitchell, and his 
club of stnall wits, who, about 1719, published a very 
poor miscellany, to which Pr. Yoiuig, the author a( 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



87 



volume of poems of his own in 1721, which 
was favourably received, he undertook to make 
a collection of ancient Scottish poems, undci" the 
title of the Ever- Green, and was afterwards 
encouraged to present to the world a collection 
of Scottish songs. " From what sources he 
procured them," says Ramsay of Othtcrtyre, 
" whether from tradition or manuscript, is un- 
certain. As in the Ever- Green he made some 
rash attempts to improve on the originals of his 
ancient poems, he probably used still greater 
freedom with the songs and ballads. The truth 
cannot, however, be known on this point, till 
manuscripts of the songs printed by him, more 
ancient than the present century, shall be pro- 
duced, or access be obtained to his own pajjcrs 
if they are still in existence. To several tunes 
which either wanted words, or had words that 
were improper or imperfect, he or his friends 
adapted verses worthy of the melodies they ac- 
companied, worthy indeed of the golden age. 
These verses were perfectly intelligible to every 
rustic, yet justly admired by persons of taste, 
who regarded them as the genuine offspring of 
the pastoral muse. In some respects Ramsay 
had advantages not possessed by poets writing 
in the Scottish dialect in our days. Songs in 
the dialect of Cumberland or Lancashire, could 
never be popular, because these dialects have 
never been spoken by persons of fashion. But 
till the middle of the present century, every 
Scotsman, from the peer to the peasant, spoke 
a truly Doric language. It is true the English 
moralists and poets were by this time read by 
every person of condition, and considered as the 
standards for polite composition. But, as na- 
tional prejudices were still strong, the busy, the 
learned, the gay, and the fair continued to speak 
their native dialect, and that with an elegance 
and poignancy of which Scotsmen of the present 
day can have no just notion. I am old enough 
to have conversed with Mr. Spittal, of Leuchat, 
a scholar and a man of fashion, who survived 
all the members of the Union Parliament, in 
which he had a seat. His pronunciation and 
phraseology differed as much from the common 
dialect, as the language of St. James's from that 
of Thames Street. Had we retained a court 
and parliament of our own, the tongues of the 
two sister kingdoms would indeed have differed 
like the Castilian and Portuguese ; but each 
would have its own classics, not in a single 
branch, but in the whole circle of literature. 

" Ramsay associated with the men of wit 
and fashion of his day, and several of them at- 
tempted to write poetry in his manner. Per- 
sons too idle or too dissipated to think of com- 
positions that required much exertion, succeeded 
very happily in making tender sonnets to fa- 
vourite tunes in compliment to their mistresses, 
and transforming themselves into impassioned 



sheidierds, caught the language of the characters 
they assumed. Thus, about the year 1731, 
Robert Crawfurd of Auchinames, wrote the 
modern song of Tivceclside,* which has been 
so much admired. In 1743, Sir Gilbert Elliot, 
the first of our lawyers who both spoke and 
wrote English elegantly, composed, in the cha- 
racter of a love-sick swain, a beautiful song, 
beginning, My sheep I neglecte(J, I lout my 
sheep-hook, on the marriage of his mistress. 
Miss Forbes, with Ronald Crawfuid. And 
about twelve years afterwards, the sister of Sir 
Gilbert wrote the ancient words to the tune of 
the Flowers of the Forest,f and supposed to al- 
lude to the battle of Flowdeu. In spite of the 
double rhyme, it is a sweet, and though in some 
parts allegorical, a natural exj)ression of national 
sorrow. The more modern words to the same 
tune, beginning, Ihave seen the smiling of for- 
tune heguili7ig, were written long before by Mrs. 
Cocklmrn, a woman of great wit, who outlived 
all the first group of literati of the j)resent cen- 
tury, all of whom were very fond of her. I was 
delighted with her company, though when I saw 
her, she was very old. Much did she know 
that is now lust." 

In addition to these instances of Scottish 
songs, j)roduced in the earlier part of the pre- 
sent century, may be mentioned the ballad of 
Hardiknute, by Lady Wardlaw ; the ballad of 
WilUain and Margaret ; and the song entitled 
the Bilks of Invermay, by 3Iallet ; the love- 
song, beginning, For ever. Fortune, icilt thou 
prove, produced by the youtliful muse of Thom- 
son ; and the exquisite pathetic ballad, the Braes 
of Yarrow, by Hamilton of Bangour. On the 
revival of letters in Scotland, subsequent to the 
Uni'on, a very general taste seems to have pre- 
vailed for the national songs and music. " For 
many years," says Mr. Ramsay, " the singing 
of songs was the great delight of the higher and 
middle order of the people, as well as of the 
peasantry ; and though a taste for Italian music 
has interfered with this amusement, it is still 
very prevalent. Between forty and fifty years 
ago, the common people were not only exceed- 
ngly fond of songs and ballads, but of metrical 
history. Often have I, in my cheerful morn of 
youth, listened to them with delight, when 
reading or reciting the exploits of Wallace and 
Bruce against the Southrons. Lord Hailea 
was wont to call Blind Hariy their Bible, he 
being their great favourite next the Scriptures. 
When, therefore, one in the vale of life felt the 
first emotion of genius, he wanted not models 
sui generis. But though the seeds of jjoetry 
were scattered with a plentiful hand among the 
Scottish peasantry, the product was probably 
like that of pears and apples — of a thousand 
that sprung up, nine hundred and fifty are so 
bad as to set the teeth on edge ; forty-five or 



he Night Thoiis;hls, prefixed a copy of vrrGPS." 
Extract of a letter from Mr Ramsay of Ochlerfyrc 
to the Editor. 



* Bepinninsr, What beauties dopf! Flora disclose ! 
t Beginning, / have heard a lilting at our eiccs- 

milkiii2 



88 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



mor6 are passable and useful ; and the rest of 
an exquisite flavour. Allan Ramsay and Burns 
are wildings of this last description. They had 
the example of the elder Scottish poets ; they 
were not without the aid of the best English 
writers ; and, what was of still more import- 
ance, they were no strangers to the book of na- 
ture, and to the book of God." 

From this general view, it is apparent that 
Allan Ramsay may be considered as in a great 
measure the reviver of the rural poetry of his 
country. His collection of ancient Scottish 
poems under the name of The Ever-green, his 
collection of Scottish songs, and his own poems, 
the principal of which is the Gentle Shepherd, 
have been universally read among the peasantry 
of his country, and have in some degree super- 
seded the adventures of Bruce and Wallace, as 
recorded by Barbour and Blind Harry. Burns 
was well acquainted with all of these. He had 
also before him the poems of Fergusson in the 
Scottish dialect, which have been produced in 
our own times, and of which it will be neces- 
sary to give a short account. 

Fergusson was born of parents who had it in 
their power to procure him a liberal education, 
a circumstance, however, which in Scotland, 
implies no very high rank in society. From a 
well written and apparently authentic account 
of his life, we learn that he spent six years at 
the schools of Edinburgh and Dundee, and se- 
veral years at the universities of Edinburgh and 
St. Andrew's. It appears that he was at one 
time destiued for the Scottish church ; but as 
he advanced towards manhood, he renounced 
that intention, and at Edinburgh entered the 
office of an attorney. Fergusson had sensibility 
of mind, a warm and generous heart, and ta- 
lents for society, of the most attractive kind. 
To such a man no situation could be more dan- 
gerous than that in which he was placed. The 
excesses into which he was led, impaired his 
feeble constitution, and he sunk under them in 
the month of October, 1774, in his 23d or 24th 
year. Burns was not acquainted with the 
poems of this youthful genius when he himself 
began to write poetry ; and when he first saw 
them, he had renounced the muses. But while 
he resided in the town of Irvine, meeting with 
Fergusson s Scottish Poems, he informs us that 
he " strung his lyre anew with emulating vi- 
gour." Touched by the sympathy originating 
in kindred genius, and in the forebodings of si- 
milar fortune, Burns regarded Fergusson with 
a partial and an affectionate admiration. Over 
his grave he erected a monument, as has al- 
ready been mentioned ; and his poems he has 
in several instances made the subjects of his 
imitation. 

From this account of the Scottish poems 
known to Burns, those who are acquainted 
with them will see they are chiefly humorous 
or pathetic ; and under one or other of these 
descriptions most of his own poems will class. 
Let us compare him with his predecessors un- 



der each of these points of view, and close our 
examination with a few general observations. 

It has frequently been observed, that Scot- 
laud has produced, comparatively speakingf few 
writers who have excelled in humour. But this 
observation is true only when applied to those 
who have continued to reside in their own coun- 
try, and have confined themselves to composi- 
tion in pure English ; and in tliese circum- 
stances it admits of an easy explanation. The 
Scottish poets, who have written in the dialect 
of Scotland, have been at all times remarkable 
for dwelling on subjects of humour, in which 
indeed some of them have excelled. It would 
be easy to show, that the dialect of Scotland 
having become provincial, is now scarcely suit- 
ed to the more elevated kinds of poetry. If we 
may believe that the poem of Christis Kirk of 
the Grene was written by James the First of 
Scotland, this accomplished monarch, who had 
received an English education under Henry the 
Fourth, and who bore arms under his gallant 
successor, gave the model on which the greater 
part of the humorous productions of the rustic 
muse of Scotland had been formed, Christis 
Kirk of the Grene was reprinted by Ramsay, 
somewhat modernized in the orthography, and 
two cantos were added by him, in which he at- 
tempts to carry on the design. Hence the poem 
of King James is usually printed in Ramsay's 
works. The royal bard describes, in the first 
canto, a rustic dance, and afterwards a conten- 
tion in archery, ending in an affray. Ramsay 
relates the restoration of concord, and the re- 
newal of the rural sports with the humours of a 
country wedding. Though each of the poets 
describes the manners of his respective age, yet 
in the whole piece there is a very sufficient uni- 
formity ; a striking proof of the identity of cha- 
I'acter in the Scottish peasantry at the two pe- 
riods, distant from each other three hundred 
years. It is an honourable distinction to this 
body of men, that their character and manners, 
very little embellished, have been found to be 
susceptible of an amusing and interesting spe- 
cies of poetry ; and it must appear not a little 
curious, that the single nation of modern Eu- 
rope which possesses an original poetry, should 
have received the model, followed by their rus- 
tic bards, from the monarch on the throne. 

The two additional cantos to Christis Kirk 
of the Grene, written by Ramsay, though ob- 
jectionable in point of delicacy, are among the 
happiest of his productions. His chief excel- 
lence indeed, lay in the description of rural cha- 
racters, incidents, and scenery ; for he did not 
possess any very high powers either of imagina- 
tion or of understanding. He was well ac- 
quainted with the peasantry of Scotland, their 
lives and opinions. The subject was in a great 
meiisure new ; his talents were equal to the 
subject, and he has shown that it may be hap- 
pily adapted to pastoral poetry. In his Gentle 
Shepherd, the characters are delineations from 
nature, the descriptive parts are in the genuine 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



89 



style of beautiful simplicity, the passions and 
affections of rural life are linoly portrayed, and 
the heart is pleasingly interested in the happi- 
ness that is besto\^ed on innocence and virtue. 
Throughout the whole there is an air of reality 
uhich the most careless reader cannot but pc 
ceive ; and in fact no poem ever perhaps ac- 
quired so high a reputation, in which truth re- 
ceived so little embellishment from the imagina- 
tion. In his pastoral songs, and his rural tales, 
Ramsay appears to less advantage, indeed, but 
still with considerable attraction. The story of 
the Monk and the Miller's Wife., though some- 
what licentious, may rank with the happiest 
, productions of Prior or La Fontaine. But when 
he attempts subjects from higher life, and aims 
at pure English composition, he is feeble and 
uninteresting, and seldom even reaches medio- 
crity. Neither are his famOiar epistles and 
elegies in the Scottish dialect entitled to much 
approbation. Though Fergusson had higher 
powers of imagination than Ramsay, his genius 
was not of the highest order ; nor did his learn- 
ing, which was considerable, improve his ge- 
nius. His poems written in pure English, in 
which he often follows classical models, though 
^>uperior to the English poems of Ramsay, sel- 
dom rise above mediocrity ; but in those com- 
posed in the Scottish dialect he is often very 
successful. He was, in general, however, less 
happy than Ramsay in the subjects of his muse. 
As he spent the greater part of his life in Edin- 
burgh, and wrote for his amusement in the in- 
tervals of business or dissipation, his Scottish 
poems are chiefly founded on the incidents of a 
town life, which, though they are not suscepti- 
ble of humour, do not admit of those delinea- 
tions of scenery and manners, which vivify the 
rural poetry of Ramsay, and which so agreeably 
amuse the fancy and interest the heart. The 
town eclogues of Fergusson, if we may so deno- 
minate them, are however faithful to nature, 
and often distinguished by a very happy vein of 
humour. His poems entitled The I)aft JDarjs, 
The King's liirtJi-day in Edi}ihurc)h, Leith 
Races, and The Hallow Fair, will justify this 
character. In these, particularly in ,the last, he 
imitated Christis Kirk of the Grenc, as Ram- 
say had done before him. His Address to the 
Tron-kirk Bell is an exquisite piece of humour, 
which Burns has scarcely excelled. In appre- 
ciating the genius of Fergusson, it ought to be 
recollected, that his poems are the careless clfu- 
sions of an irregular though amiable young man, 
who wrote for the periodical papers of the day, 
and who died iri early youth. Had his life been 
prolonged under ha))pier circumstances of for- 
tune, he would probably have risen to much 
higher reputation. He njiglit have excelled in 
rural poetry, for though his professed pa^itorals 
on the established Sicilian model, are stale and 
uninteresting, The Farmer's Lujle,* which 



The farmer's firo-sulc. 

3:2 



may be considered as a Scottish pastoral, is the 
haiq)iest of all his productions, and certainly 
was the archetyjje of the Colter's Saturday 
Nitjht. F^ergusson, and more especially Burns, 
have shown, that the character and manners of 
the ])easantry of Scotland, of the present times, 
are as well adapted to poetry, as in the days of 
Ramsay, or of the author of Christis Kirk of 
the (jlrene. 

The humour of Burns is of a richer vein than 
that of Ramsay or Fergusson, both of whom, as 
he himself informs us, he had " frequently in his 
eye, but rather with a view to kindle at their 
flame, than to servile imitation." His descrip- 
tive powers, whether the objects on which they 
are employed be comic or serious, animate, or 
inanimate, are of the highest order. — A supe- 
riority of this kind is essential to every species 
of poetical excellence. In one of his earlier 
poems his plan seems to be to inculcate a lesson 
of contentment on the lower classes of society, 
by showing that their superiors are neither 
nmch better nor happier than themselves ; and 
this he chooses to execute in the form of a dia- 
logue between two dogs. He introduces this 
dialogue by an account of the persons and cha- 
racters of the speakers. The first, whom he 
has named Coisar, is a dog of condition : — 

" His locked, letter'd, braw brass collar. 
Showed him the gentleman and scholar." 

High-bred though he is, he is however full of 
condescension : 

" At kirk or market, mill or smiddle, 
Nae tawted tyke, tho' e'er sae duddie, 
But he wad stan't, as glad to see him, 
yln' stroan't on stanes an' hillocks wi him." 



The othei', Luath, is a " plougman's- collie," 
but a cur of a good heart and a sound under- 
standing. 

His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face, 
Aye gat him friends in ilka place ; 
His breast was white, his towsie back 
Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black ; 
His gawcie tail, wi' upward curl, 
Hung o'er his hurdles wV a swirl." 

Never were twa dogs so exquisitely delineat- 
ed. Their gambols, before they sit down to 
moralize, are described with an ecjual degree of 
happiness ; and through the whole dialogue, 
the character, as well as the dlFerent condition 
of the two speakers, is kept in view. The 
speech of Luath, in whi<;h he enumerates the 
comforts of the ])oor, gives the following ac- 
coniit of their merriment on the first day of the 
ear : 

" That merry day the year begins. 
They bar the door on frosty winds: 



&0 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream, 
And sheds a heart-inspirin' steam ; 
The luntin pipe, and sneeshin' mill, 
Are handed round wi' right guid-will ; 
The canty auld folks crackin' crouse, 
The young anes rantin' thro' the house — 
My heart has been sae fain to see them, 
Ihat I for joy hue barkit wi' them." 

Of all the animals who have moralized on hu 
man affairs since the days of iEsop, the dog 
seems best entitled to this privilege, as well from 
his superior sagacity, as from his being, more 
than any other, the friend and associate of man. 
The dogs of Burns, excepting in their talent for 
moralizing, are downright dogs. The " twa 
dogs" are constantly kept before our eyes, and 
the contrast between their form and character 
as dogs, and the sagacity of their conversation, 
heightens the humour, and deepens the impres- 
sion of the poet's' satire. Though in this poem 
the chief excellence may be considered as hu' 
mour, yet great talents are displayed in its com- 
position ; the happiest powers of description 
and the deepest insight into the human heart. 
It is seldom, however, that the humour of Burns 
appears in so simple a form. The liveliness of 
bis sensibility frequently impels him to intro- 
duce into subjects of humour, emotions of ten- 
derness or of pity ; and, where occasion admits, 
he is sometimes carried on to exert the higher 
powers of imagination. In such instances he 
leaves the society of Ramsay and of Fergusson, 
and associates himself with the masters of Eng- 
lish poetry, whose language he frequently as- 
sumes. 

Of the union of tenderness and humour, ex- 
amples may be found in The Death and Dying 
Words of poor ATailie, in The auld Farmer's 
New- Year's 3Iorning Salutation to his Mare 
Maggie, and in many other of his poems. The 
praise of whisky is a favourite subject with 
Burns. To this he dedicates his poem of 
Scotch Drink, After mentioning its cheering 
influence in a variety of situations, he describes, 
with singular liveliness and power of fancy, its 
stimulating effects on the blacksmith working 
at his forge : 

" Nae mercy, then, for airn or steel ; 
The brawnie, bainie, ploughman chiel. 
Brings hard owre-hip, wi' sturdy wheel, 
T'he strong fore-hammer, 
Till block an' studdie ring and reel 

Wi' dinsome clamour." 

Again, however, he sinks into humour, and 
concludes the poem with the following most 
laughable, but most irreverent apostrophe : 

<' Scotland, my auld, respected mither ! 
Though whyles ye moistify your leather, 
'Till where you sit, on craps o' heather, 

Ye tine your dam ; J 



Freedom and Whisky gang theglther, 
Tak' aff your dram !" 

Of this union of humour, with the higher 
powers of imagination, instances may be found 
in the poem entitled Death and Dr. Hornbook^ 
and in almost every stanza of the Address to 
the Deil, one of the happiest of his productions. 
After reproaching this terrible being with all 
his " doings" and misdeeds, in the course of 
which he passes through a series of Scottish 
superstitions, and rises at times into a high 
strain of poetry ; he concludes this address, de- 
livered in a tone of great familiarity, not alto- 
gether unmixed with apprehension, in the fol- 
lowing words : 

" But, fare ye weel, auld Nickie-ben ! 
O wad ye tak a thought an' men' ! 
Ye aiblins might — I dinna ken — 

Still ha'e a stake— 
I'm wae to think upo' yon den 

Ev'n for your sake ! 

Humour and tenderness are here so happily 
intermixed, that it is impossible to say which 
preponderates. 

Fergusson wrote a dialogue between the 
Causeway and the PlainstoneSy* of Edinburgh. 
This probably suggested to Burns his dialogue 
between the Old and New Bridge over the river 
Ayr. The nature of such subjects requires that 
they shall be treated humorously, and Fergusson 
has attempted nothing beyond this. Though 
the Causeivay and the Plainstones talk to- 
gether, no attempt is made to personify the 
speakers. 

In the dialogue between the Brigs of Ayr^ 
the poet, " press'd by care," or " inspired by 
whim," had left his bed in the town of Ayr, 
and wandered out alone in the darkness and so- 
litude of a winter night, to the mouth of the 
river, where the stillness was interrupted only 
by the rushing sound of the influx of the tide. 
It was after midnight. The Dungeon-clock 
had struck two, and the sound had been re- 
peated by Wallace- Tower. All else was hushed. 
The moon shone brightly, and 

" The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam. 
Crept, gently-crusting, o'er the glittering stream." 

In this situation, the listening bard hears the 
" clanging sugh" of wings moving through the 
air, and speedily he perceives two beings, reared, 
the one on the Old, the other on the New Bridge, 
whose form and attire he describes, and whose 
conversation with each other he rehearses. 
These genii enter into a comparison of the re- 
spective edifices over which they preside, and af- 
terwards, as is usual between the old and young, 
compare modern characters and manners with 
those of past times. They differ, as may be ex- 



Plains !o lies— iide-puvcinent. 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



91 



pected, and taunt and scold each other in broad 
Scotch. This conversation, wliich is certainly 
humorous, may be considered as a proper busi- 
ness of the poem. As the debate runs high, and 
threatens serious consequences, all at once it is 
internipted by a new scene of wonders : 

-" all before their sight 



A fairy train appear'd in order bright ; 
Adown the glittering stream they featly danced ; 
Bright to the moon their various dresses glanced ; 
They footed o'er the wat'ry glass so neat, 
The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet ; 
While arts of minstrelsy among them rung, 
And soul-ennobled Bards heroic ditties sung." 



*' The Genius of the Stream in front appears, 
A venerable chief, advanced in years ; 
His hoary head with water-lilies crown'd. 
His manly leg with garter tangle bound." 

Next follow a number of other allegorical be- 
ings, among whom are the four seasons, Rural 
Joy, Plenty, Hospitality, and Courage. 

" Benevolence, with mild benignant air, 
A female form, came from the tow'rs of Stair : 
Learning and Worth in equal measures trode, 
From simple Catrine, their long-loved abode : 
Last, white-robed Peace, crown'd with a hazel 

wreath. 
To rustic Agriculture did bequeath 
The broken iron instrument of Death ; 
At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their kin- 
dling wrath." 

This poem, irregular and imperfect as it is, 
displays various and powerful talents, and may 
serve to illustrate the genius of Burns. In par- 
ocular, it affords a striking instance of his being 
carried beyond his original purpose by the pow- 
ers of imagination. 

In Fergusson's poem, the Plainstones and 
Causeway contrast the characters of the diflfer- 
ent persons who walked upon them. Burns 
probably conceived, that, by a dialogue between 
the Old and New Bridge, he might form a hu- 
morous contrast between ancient and modern 
maanei-s in the town of Ayr. Such a dialogue 
could only be supposed to pass in the stillness of 
night ; and this led our poet into a description 
of a midnight scene, which excited in a high 
degree the powers of his imagination. During 
the whole dialogue the scenery is present to his 
fancy, and at length it suggests to him a fairy 
dance of aerial beings, under the beams of the 
moon, by which the wrath of the Genii of the 
Brigs of Ayr is appeased. 

Incongruous as the different parts of this poem 
are, it is not an incongruity that displeases ; and 
we have only to regret that the poet did not be- 
stow a little pains in making the figures more 
correct, and in smoothing the versification. 

The epistles of Burns, in which may be in- 



cluded his Dedication to G. H. Esq. discover, 
like his other writings, the powers of a superior 
understanding. They display deep insight into 
human nature, a gay and happy strain of reflec- 
tion, great independence of sentiment, and ge- 
nerosity of heart. The /ia?/ozyeen of Burns is 
free from every objection. It is interesting not 
merely from its humorous description of manners, 
but as it records the spells and charms used on 
the celebration of a festival, now, even in Scot- 
land, falling into neglect, but which was once 
observed over the greater part of Britain and 
Ireland. These charms are su])posed to afford 
an insight into futurity, especially on the sub- 
ject of mai'riage, the most interesting event of 
rural life. In the Halloween, a female, in per- 
forming one of the spells, has occasion to go out 
by moonlight to dip her shift-sleeve into a stream 
running toivards the South. It was not ne- 
cessary for Burns to give a description of this 
stream. But it was the character of his ardent 
mind to pour forth not merely what the occasion 
required, but what it admitted ; and the temp- 
tation to describe so beautiful a natural object 
by moonlight, was not to be resisted — 

*' Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, 
As through the glen it wimpl't ; 
Whyles round the rocky scar it strays ; 

Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't ; 
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, 

Wi' bickering dancing dazzle ; 
Whyles cookit underneath the braes, 
Beneath the spreading hazel, 

Unseen that night. 

Those who understand the Scottish dialect 
will allow this to be one of the finest instances 
of description which the records of poetry afford. 

In pastoral, or, to speak more correctly, in 
rural poetry of a serious nature. Burns excelled 
equally as in that of a humorous kind, and, using 
less of the Scottish dialect in his serious poems, 
he becomes more generally intelligible. It is dif- 
ficult to decide whether the Address to a Mouse 
whose nest was turned up with the plough, should 
be considered as serious or comic. Be this as 
it may, the poem is one of the happiest and 
most finished of his productions. If we smile 
at the " bickering brattle" of this little flying 
animal, it is a smile of tenderness and pity. 
The descriptive part is admirable : the moral re- 
flections beautiful, and arising directly out of the 
occasion ; and in the conclusion there is a deep 
melancholy, a sentiment of doubt and dread, 
that arises to the sublime. The Address to a 
Mountain Daisy, turned down loith the plough, 
is a poem of the same nature, though somewhat 
inferior in point of originality, as well as in the 
interest produced. To extract out of incidents 
so common, and seemingly so trivial as these, 
so fine a train of sentiment and imagery, is the 
surest proof, as well as the most brilliant triumph, 
of original genius. The Vision, in two cantos, 
from which a beautiful extract is taken by Mr 



92 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



Mackenzie, in the 97th number of the Lounger, 
is a poem of great and various excellence. The 
opening, in which the poet describes his own 
state of mind, retiring in the evening, wearied, 
from the labours of the day, to moralize on his 
conduct and prospects, is truly interesting. The 
chamber, if we may so term it, in which he sits 
down to muse, is an exquisite painting : — 

" There, lanely, by the ingle cheek, 
I sat and eyed the spewing reek, 
That fill'd wi' hoast-provoking smeek 
That auld clay biggin ; 
An' heard the restless rattons squeak 
About the riggin. " 

To reconcile to our imagination the entrance 
of an aerial being into a mansion of this kind, 
required the powers of Burns — he, however, suc- 
ceeds. Coila enters, and her countenance, atti- 
tude, and dress, unlike those of other spiritual 
beings, are distinctly portrayed. To the painting 
on her mantle, on which is depicted the most 
striking scenery, as well as the most distinguished 
characters, of his native country, some exceptions 
may be made. The mantle of Coila, like the cup 
of Thyrsis,* and the shield of Achilles, is too 
much crowded with figures, and some of the ob- 
jects represented upon it are scarcely admissible, 
according to the principles of design. The ge- 
nerous temperament of Burns led him into these 
exuberances. In his second edition he enlarged 
the number of figures originally introduced, that 
he might include objects to which he was at- 
tached by sentiments of affection, gratitude, or 
patriotism. The second Duan, or canto of this 
poem, in which Coila describes her own nature 
and occupations, particularly her superintendence 
of his infant genius, and in which she reconciles 
him to the character of a bard, is an elevated and 
solemn strain of poetry, ranking in all respects, 
excepting the harmony of numbers, with the 
higher productions of the English muse. The 
concluding stanza, compared with that already 
quoted, will show to what a height Bums rises 
in this poem, from the point at which he set 
out : — 

•' And wear thori tliis — she solemn said. 
And bound the holly round my head ; 
The polish'd leaves, and berries red. 

Did rusthng play ; 
And, like a passing thought, she fled 
In hght away." 

In various poems Burns has exhibited the pic- 
ture of a mind under the deep impressions of 
real sorrow. The Lament, the Ode to Rum, 
Despondency, and Winter, a Dirye, are of this 
character. In the first of these poems the eighth 
stanza, which describes a sleepless night from 
anguish of mind, is particularly striking. Burns 
often indulged in those melancholy views of the 



* See the first IdyUium of Theocritus, 



nature and condition of man, which are so con- 
genial to the temperament of sensibility. The 
poem entitled Man was made to Mourn, affords 
an instance of tliis kind, and TJie Winter NigM 
is of the same description. The last is highly 
characteristic, both of the temper of mind, and 
of the condition of Burns. It begins with a 
description of a dreadful storm on a night in 
winter. The poet represents himself as lying in 
bed, and listening to its howling. In this situ- 
ation, he naturally turns his thoughts to the 
ourie * Cattle, and the silly \ Sheep, exposed to 
all the violence of the tempest. Having lament- 
ed their fate, he proceeds in the following : — 

" Ilk happing bird — wee helpless thing ! 
That in the merry months o' spring. 
Delighted me to hear thee sing. 

What comes o' thee ? 
Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, 

An' close thy e'e ? 

Other reflections of the same nature occur to 
his mind ; and as the midnight moon, " muf- 
fled with clouds," casts her dreary light on his 
window, thoughts of a darker and more me- 
lancholy nature crowd upon him. In this state 
of mind, he hears a voice pouring through the 
gloom, a solemn and plaintive strain of reflec- 
tion. The mourner compares the fury of the 
elements with that of man to his brother man, 
and finds the former light in the balance. 

" See stern Oppression's iron grip, 

Or mad Ambition's gory hand, 
Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip, 

"Woe, want, and murder, o'er the land." 

lie pursues this train of reflection through a 
variety of particulars, in the course of which he 
introduces the following animated apostrophe :— • 

" O ye ! who sunk in beds of down, 

Feel not a want but what yourselves create. 

Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate. 

Whom friends and fortune quite disown ! 
Ill-satisfy'd keen Nature's clam'rous call, 

Stretch'd on his straw he lays him down to 
sleep, 
Wliile thro' the ragged roof and chinky wall. 

Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap." 

The strain of sentiment which runs through 
this poem is noble, though the execution is un- 
equal, and the versification is defective. 

Among the serious poems of Burns, The 
Cotter's Saturday Night is perhaps entitled to 
the first rank. The Farmer's Ligle of Fergus- 
son evidently suggested the plan of this poem, 
as has been already mentioned ; but after the 
plan was formed, Burns trusted entirely to his 



* Ourie, out-lying. Ourie Cattle, Cattle that are un- 
housed all winter. 

t SiUy is in this, as in other places, a term of com 
passion and endearment. 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



93 



own powers for the exccutiou. Fergusson's 
poem is certainly very beautiful. It has all the 
charms which depend on rural characters and 
manners happily })ortrayed, and exhibited under 
circumstances highly grateful to the imagination. 
The Farmer's Inyle. begins with describing tlie 
return of evening. The toils of the day are over, 
and the farmer retires to his comfortable fire- 
side. The reception which he and his men-ser- 
vants receive from the careful house-wife, is 
pleasingly described. After their supper is over, 
they begin to talk on the rural events of the day. 

** 'Bout kirk and market eke their tales gae on, 
How Joch wooM Jenny here to be his bride ; 

And there how Marion for a bastard son, 
Upon the cutty-stool was forced to ride, 

The waefu' scauld o' our Mess John to bide. 

The " Guidame" is next introduced as forming 
a circle round the fire, in the midst of her grand- 
children, and while she spins from the rock, 
and the spindle plays on her " russet lap," she 
is relating to the young ones tales of witches and 
ghosts. The poet exclaims, 

*' O mock na this my friends ! but rather mourn. 
Ye in life's brawest spring wi' reason clear, 

Wi' eild our Idle fancies a' return, 

And dim our dolefu' days wi' balrnly fear; 

The mind's aye cradVd when the grave is near." 

In the meantime the farmer, wearied with the 
fatigues of the day, stretches himself at length 
on the settle, a sort of rustic couch, which ex- 
tends on one side of the fire, and the cat and 
house-dog leap ui)on it to receive his caresses. 
Here, resting at his ease, he gives his directions 
to his men-servants for the succeeding day. 
The house-wife follows his example, and gives 
her orders to the maidens. By degrees the oil 
in the cruise begins to fail ; the fire runs low ; 
sleep steals on his rustic group ; and they move 
off to enjoy their peaceful slumbers. The poet 
concludes by bestowing his blessing on the 
" husbandman and all his tribe." 

This is an original and truly interesting pas- 
toral. It possesses every thing required in this 
species of composition. We might have perhajis 
said, every thing that it admits, had not Burns 
written his Cotter's Saturdatj Night. 

The cottager returning from his labours, has 
no servants to accompany him, to partake of his 
fare, or to receive his instructions. The circle 
which he joins, is composed of his wife and chil- 
dren only ; and if It admits of less variety, it af- 
fords an opportunity for representing scenes that 
more strongly interest the affections. The 
younger children running to meet him, and 
clambering round his knee ; the elder, returning 
from their weekly labours with the neighbouring 
farmers, dutifully depositing their little gains 
with their parents, and receiving their father's 
blessing and instructions ; the Incidents of the 
courtship of Jenny, their eldest daughter, " wo- 



man grown," arc circumstances oFthc most i^. 
teresting kind, which are most hapi)ily delineat- 
ed ; and after their frugal supper, the represen- 
tation of these humbler cottagers forming a wider 
circle round their liearth, and uniting in the 
worship of God, is a picture the most deeply af- 
fecting of any which the rural muse has ever 
presented to the view. Burns was admirably 
adapted to this delineation. Like all men of 
genius he was of the temperament of devotion, 
and the powers of memory co-operated in this 
instance with the sensibility of his heart, and 
the fervour of his imagination. The Cutter's 
Saturday Night is tender and moral, it is so- 
lemn and devotional, and rises at length in a 
strain of grandeur and sublimity, which modern 
poetry has not surpassed. The noble sentiments 
of patriotism with which it concludes, corres- 
pond with the rest of the poem. In no age or 
country have the pastoral muses breathed such 
elevated accents, if the Messiah of Pope be ex- 
cepted, which is indeed a pastoral in form only. 
It Is to be regretted that Ikirns did not employ 
his genius on other subjects of the same nature, 
which the manners and customs of the Scottish 
peasantry would have amply supplied. Such 
poetry is not to be estimated by the degree of 
pleasure which it bestows ; it sinks deeply into 
the heart, and is calculated, far beyond any other 
human means, for giving permanence to the 
scenes and the characters it so exquisitely de- 
sciibes. 

Befine we conclude, it will be proper to of- 
fer a few observations on the lyric productions 
of Burns. His compositions of this kind are 
chiefly songs, generally in the Scottish dialect, 
and always after the model of the Scottish songs, 
on the general character and moral Influence of 
which, some observations have already been of- 
fered. We may hazard a few more particular 
remarks. 

Of the historic or heroic ballads of Scotland 
it is unnecessary to speak. Burns has no where 
imitated them, a circumstance to be regretted, 
since in this species of composition, from its ad- 
mitting the more terrible, as well as the softer 
graces of poetry, he was eminently qualified to 
have excelled. The Scottish songs which ser- 
ved as a model to Burns, are almost without 
exception pastoral, or rather rural. Such of 
them as are comic, frequently treat of a rustic 
courtship, or a country wedding ; or they de- 
scribe the diflerences of opinion which arise in 
married life. Burns has imitated this species, 
and surpassed his models. The song beginning 
" Husband, husband, cease your strife," may be 
cited in support of this observation.* His other 



* The dialogues between husbands and their wives 
which form the subjects of the Scottish songs, are al- 
most all ludicrous and satirical, and in these contests 
the lady is generally victorious. From the collections 
of Mr. Pinkerton, we find that the comic muse of Scot- 
land delighted in such representations from very early 
times, in her rude dramatic efforts, as well as in her 
rustic songs. 



94 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



comic songs are of equal merit. In the rural 
songs of Scotland, whether humorous or ten- 
der, the sentiments are given to particular cha- 
racters, and very generally, the incidents are 
referred to particular scenery. This last cir- 
cumstance may be considered as a distinguish- 
ing feature of the Scottish songs, and on it a 
considerable part of their attraction depends. 
On all occasions the sentiments, of whatever 
nature, are delivered in the character of the per- 
son principally interested. If love be described, 
it is not as it is observed, but as it is felt ; and 
the passion is delineated under a particular as- 
pect. Neither is it the fiercer impulses of de- 
sire that are expressed, as in the celebrated ode 
of Sappho, the model of so many modern songs ; 
but those gentler emotions of tenderness and af- 
fection, which do not entirely absorb the lover ; 
but permit him to associate his emotions with 
the charms of external nature, and breathe the 
accents of purity and innocence, as well as of 
love. In these respects the love-songs of Scot- 
land are honourably distinguished from the 
most admired classical compositions of the same 
kind ; and by such associations, a variety as 
well as liveliness, is given to the representation 
of this passion, which are not to be found in 
the poetry of Greece or Rome, or perhaps of 
any other nation. Many of the love-songs of 
Scotland describe scenes of rural courtship ; 
many may be considered as invocations from 
lovers to their mistresses. On such occasions 
a degree of interest and realily is given to the 
sentiment, by the spot destined to these happy 
interviews being particularized. The lovers 
perhaps meet at the Bush ahoon Traqtiair, or 
on the JBanks of Ettrick ; the nymphs are in- 
voked to wander among the wilds of Roslin or 
the Woods of Invermay. Nor is the spot mere- 
ly pointed out ; the scenery is often described 
as well as the character, so as to represent a 
complete picture to the fancy. * Thus the 



* One or two examples may illustrate this observa- 
tion. A Scottish song, wrltteii about a hundred years 
ago, begins thus :— 

♦' On Ettrick Banks, on a summer's night 
At gloaming, when the sheep drove hame 
I met my lassie, braw and tight. 
Come wading barefoot a' her lane. 

My heart grew light, I ran, I flang 

My arms about her lily-neek. 
And kissed and clasped there fu* lang— 

My words they were na mony feck." 

The lover, who is a Highlander, goes on to relate 
the language he employed with his Lowland maid to 
win her heart, and to persuade her to fly with him to 
the Highland hills, there to share his fortune. The 
sentimetits arc in themselves beautiful. But we feel 
them with double force, while we conceive that they 
were addressed by a lover to his mistress, whom he 
met all alone on a summer's evening, by the banks of 
a beautiful stream, which some of us have actually 
seen, and which all of us can paint to our imagination. 
Let us take another example. It is now a nymph that 
speaks. Here how she expresses herself — 

" How blythe each mom was I to see ' 
My swain oorae o'er the hill .' 



maxim of Horace, ut pictura poesis, is faithful- 
ly observed by these rustic bards, who are guid- 
ed by the same impulse of nature and sensibility 
which influenced the fiither of epic poetry, on 
whose example the precept of the Roman poet 
was perhaps founded. By this means the ima- 
gination is employed to interest the feelings. 
When we do not conceive distinctly, we do not 
sympathize deeply in any human affection ; and 
we conceive nothing in the abstract. Abstrac- 
tion, so useful in morals, and so essential in 
science, must be abandoned when the heart is 
to be subdued by the powers of poetry or of 
eloquence. The bards of a ruder condition of 
society paint individual objects ; and hence, 
among other causes, the easy access they obtain 
to the heart. Generalization is the voice of 
poets, whose learning overpowers their genius ; 
of poets of a refined and scientific age. 

The dramatic style which prevails so much 
in the Scottish songs, while it contributes great- 
ly to the interest they excite, also shows that 
they have originated among a people in the ear- 
lier stages of society. Where this form of com- 
position appears in songs of a modern date, it 
indicates that they have been written after the 
ancient model.* 

The Scottish songs are of very unequal poe- 
tical merit, and this inequality often extends to 
the different parts of the same song. Those that 
are humorous, or characteristic of manners, 
have in general the merit of copying nature ; 
those that are serious are tender and often 
sweetly interesting, but seldom exhibit high 
powers of imagination, which indeed do not 



He skipt the bum, and flew to me, 
I met him with good will." 

Here is another picture drawn by the pencil of Na- 
ture. We see a shepherdess standing by the side of a 
brook, watching her lover, as he descends the opposite 
hill. He bounds lightly along ; he approaches nearer 
and nearer; he leaps the brook, and flies into her 
arms. In the recollection of these circumstances, the 
surrounding scenery becomes endeared to the fair 
mourner, and she bursts into the following exclama- 
tion : — 

** O the broom, the bonnie bonnie broom. 
The broom of the Cowden-knowes J 
I wish I were with rav dear swain. 
With his pipe and his ewes;" 

Thus the individual spot of this happy interview is 
pointed out, and the picture is completed. 

* Tliat the dramatic form of writing characterizes 
productions of an early, or what amounts to the same, 
of a rude stage of society, may be illustrated by a re- 
ference to the most ancient compositions that we know 
of, the Hebrew scriptures, and the v/ritings of Homer. 
The form of dialogue is adopted in the old Scottish 
ballads, even in narration, whenever the situations de- 
scribed become interesting. This sometimes produces 
a very striking effect, of which an instance may be 
given from tlie ballad of Edom d Gordon, a composi- 
tion apparently of the sixteenth century. The story 
of the ballad is shortly this:— The Castle of Rhodes, 
in the absence of its lord, is attacked by the robber 
Edom Gordon. The lady stands on her defence, beats 
off" the assailants, and wounds Gordon, who in his rage 
orders the castle to be set on fire. That his orders are 
carried into effect, we learn from the expostulation of 
the lady, who is represented as standing on the battle- 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



95 



easily fiud a place in this species of composition. 
The alliance of the words of the Scottish songs 
with the music has in some instances given to 
the former a popularity, which otherwise they 
would never have obtained. 

The association of the words and the music 
of these songs with the more beautiful parts of 
the scenery of Scotland, contributes to the same 
effect. It has given them not merely popularity, 
but permanence ; it has imparted to the works 
of man some portion of the durability of the 
works of nature. If, from our imperfect expe- 
rience of the past, we may judge with any con- 
fidence respecting the future, songs of this de- 
scription are of all others the least likely to die. 
In the changes of language they may no doubt 
suffer change ; but the associated strain of sen- 
timent and of music will perhaps survive, while 
the clear stream sweeps down the vale of Yar- 
row, or the yellow broom waves on the Cowden- 
Knowes. 

The first attempts of Burns in song-writing 
were not very successful. His habitual inatten- 
tion to the exactness of rhymes, and to the har- 
mony of numbers, arising probably from the 
models on which his versification was formed, 
were faults likely to appear to more advantage 
in this species of composition, than in any 
other ; and we may also remark, that the 
strength of his imagination, and the exuberance 
of his sensibility, were with difficulty restrained 
within the limits of gentleness, delicacy and 
tenderness, which seem to be assigned to the 
love-songs of his nation. Burns was better 
adapted by nature for following in such compo- 
sitions the model of the Grecian than of the 
Scottish muse. By study and practice he how- 
ever surmounted all these obstacles. In his 
earlier songs there is some ruggedness ; but this 
gradually disappears in his successive efforts ; 
and some of his later compositions of this kind 
may be compared, in polished delicacy, with the 
finest songs in our language, while in the elo- 
quence of sensibility they surpass them all. 

The songs of Burns, like the models he fol- 
lowed and excelled, are often dramatic, and for 
the greater part amatory ; and the beauties of 
rural nature are every where associated with 
the passions and . emotions of the mind. Dis- 



ments and remonstrating on this barbarity. She is in- 
terrupted— 

" O then bespake her little son. 

Sate on his nourice knee ; 
Says • mither dear, gi' owre this house. 

For the reck it smithers me.' 
** I wad gie a' mv gowd, my childe, 

Sae wad 1 a' my fee. 
For ae blast o' tlie westlin wind. 

To blaw the reek frae thee." 

The circumstantiality of the Scottish love-songs, 
and the dramatic form which prevails so generally in 
them, probably arises from their being the descendants 
and successors of the ancient ballads. In the beautiful 
modern song of Mary nf Castle-Cary, the dramatic 
form has a very happy effect. The same may be said 
oT Donald and Flora, and Come under my Plaidie, by 
the same author, Mr. Macniel. 



daining to copy the works of others, he has not, 
like some poets of gi'eat name, admitted into his 
descriptions exotic imagery. The landscapes 
he has painted, and the objects with which they 
are embellished, are, in every single instance, 
such as are to be found in his own country. In 
a mountainous region, especially when it is 
comparatively rude and naked, the most beauti- 
ful scenery will always be found in the valleys, 
and on the banks of the wooded streams. Sucli 
scenery is peculiarly interesting at the close of a 
summer day. As we advance northwards, the 
number of the days of summer, indeed, dimi- 
nishes ; but from this cause, as well as from the 
mildness of the temperature, the attraction in- 
creases, and the summer night becomes still 
more beautiful. The greater obliquity of the 
sun's path in the ecliptic, prolongs the grateful 
season of twilight to the midnight hours, and 
the shades of the evening seem to mingle with 
the morning's dawn. The rural poets of Scot- 
land, as may be expected, associate in their 
songs the expression of passion, with the most 
beautiful of their scenery, in the fairest season 
of the year, and generally in those hours of the 
evening when the beauties of nature are most 
interesting. 

To all these adventitious circumstances, on 
which so much of the effect of poetry depends, 
great attention is paid by Burns. . There is 
scarcely a single song of his in which particular 
scenery is not described, or allusions made to 
natural objects, remarkable for beauty or inte- 
rest ; and though his descriptions are not so full 
as are sometimes met with in the older Scottish 
songs, they are in the highest degree appropriate 
and interesting. Instances in proof of thia 
might be quoted from the Lea Rig, Highland 
Mary, the Soldier's Return, Logan Water, 
from that beautiful pastoral, Bonnie Jean, and 
a great number of others. Occasionally the 
force of his genius carries him beyond the usual 
boundaries of Scottish song, and the natural 
objects introduced have more of the character 
of sublimity. An instance of this kind is no- 
ticed by Mr. Syme, and many others might be 
adduced. 

" Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore, 
Where the winds howl to the wave's dashing 
roar; 
There would I weep my woes. 
There seek my lost repose. 
Till grief my eyes should close 
Ne'er to wake more." 

In one song, the scene of which is laid in a 
winter night, the " wan moon" is described as 
" setting behind the white waves j" in another, 
the " storms" are apostrophized, and command- 
ed to " rest in the cave of their slumbers." Ou 
several occasions, the genius of Burns loses sight 
entirely of his archetypes, and rises into a strain 
of uniform sublimity. Instances of tliis kind 
a])pear in Liberty, a Vision, and in his two 



96 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



war-songs, Bruce to his troops, and the Sonff 
of Death. These last are of a description of 
which we have no other in our language. The 
martial songs of our nation are not military, but 
naval. If we were to seek a comparison of 
these songs of Burns with others of a similar 
nature, we must have recourse to the poetry of 
ancient Greece, or of modern Gaul. 

Burns has made an important addition to the 
songs of Scotland. In his compositions, the 
poetry equals and sometimes surpasses the mu- 
sic. He has enlarged the poetical scenery of his 
country. IMany of her rivers and mountains, 
formerly unknown to the muse, are now conse- 
crated by his immortal verse. The Doon, the 
Lugar, the Ayr, the Nith, and the Cludeu, will 
in future, like the Yarrow, the Tweed, and the 
Tay, be considered as classic streams, and their 
borders will be trode with new and superior 
emotions. 

The greater part of the songs of Burns were 
written after he removed into the county of 
Dumfries. Influenced, perhaps, by habits 
formed in early life, he usually composed while 
walking in the open air. When engaged in 
writing these songs, his favourite walks were 
on the banks of the Nith, or of the Cluden, 
particularly near the ruins of Lincluden Abbey ; 
and this beautiful scenery he has very ha])pily 
described under various aspects, as it appears 
during the softness and serenity of evening, and 
during the stillness and solemnity of the moon- 
light night. 

There is no species of poetry, the productions 
of the drama not excepted, so much calculated 
to influence the morals, as well as the happiness 
of a people, as those popular verses which are 
associated with the national airs, and which 
being learnt in the years of infancy, make a 
deep impression on the heart before the evolu- 
tion of the powers of the understanding. The 
compositions of Burns, of this kind, now pre- 
sented in a collected form to the world, make a 
most important addition to the popular songs of 
his nation. Like all his other writings, they 
exhibit Independence of sentiment j they are 
peculiarly calculated to increase those ties which 
bind generous hearts to their native soil, and to 
the domestic circle of their infancy : and to 
cherish those sensibilities which, under due re- 
striction, form the purest happiness of our na- 
ture. If in his unguarded moments he com- 
posed some songs on which this praise cannot 
be bestowed, let us hope that they will speedily 
be forgotten. In several instances, where Scot- 
tish airs were allied to words objectionable in 
point of delicacy. Burns has substituted others 
of a purer character. On such occasions, with- 
out changing the subject, he has changed the 
sentiments. A proof of this may be seen in the 
air of John Anderson my Joe, which is now 
united to words that breathe a strain of conjugal 
tenderness, that is as highly moral as it Is ex- 
quisitely afitcting. 

Few circq^nstauccs could afford a more strik- 



ing proof of the strength of Burus's genius, than 
the general circulation of his poems in England, 
notwithstanding the dialect in which the great- 
er part are written, and which might be sup- 
posed to render them here uncouth or obscure. 
In some instances he has used this dialect on 
subjects of a sublime nature ; but in general he 
confines it to sentiments or description of a 
tender or humorous kind ; and, where he rises 
into elevation of thought, he assumes a purer 
English style. The singular faculty he pos- 
sessed of mingling in the same poem humorous 
sentiments and descriptions, with imagery of a 
sublime and terrific nature, enabled him to use 
this variety of dialect on some occasions with 
striking effect. His poem of Tarn o' Shanter 
affords an instance of this. There he passes 
from a scene of the lowest humour, to situations 
of the most awful and terrible kind. He is a 
musician that runs fi-om the lowest to the 
highest of his keys ; and the use of the Scottish 
dialect enables him to add two additional notes 
to the bottom of his scale. 

Great efforts have been made by the inhabi- 
tants^ of Scotland, of the superior ranks, to ap- 
proximate in their speech to the pure English 
standard ; and this has made it difiicult to write 
in the Scottish dialect, without exciting in them 
some feelings of disgust, which in England are 
scarcely felt. An Englishman who understands 
the meaning of the Scottish words, is not of- 
fended, nay, on certain suljjects, he Is perhaps 
pleased with the rustic dialect, as he may be 
with the Doric Greek of Theocritus. 

But a Scotchman inhabiting his own coun- 
try, if a man of education, and more especially 
if a literary character, has banished such words 
from his writings, and has attempted to banish 
them from his speech ; and being accustomed 
to hear them from the vulgar daily, does not 
easily admit of their use in poetry, which re- 
quires a style elevated and ornamental. A dis- 
like of this kind Is, however, accidental, not na- 
tural. It is of the species of disgust which we 
feel at seeing a female of high birth in the dress 
of a rustic ; which, if she be really young and 
beautiful, a little habit will enable us to over- 
come. A lady who assumes such a dress puts 
her beauty, indeed, to a severer trial. She re- 
jects — she, indeed, opposes the influence of fa- 
shion ; she, possibly, abandons the grace of 
elegant and flowing drapery ; but her native 
charms remain, the more sti-iking, pei-haps, be- 
cause the less adorned ; and to these she trusts 
for fixing her empire on those affections over 
which fashion has no sway. If she succeeds, a 
new association arises. The dress of the beau- 
tiful rustic becomes itself beautiful, and estab- 
lishes a new fashion for the young and the gay. 
And when, in after ages, the contemplative ob- 
server shcUl view her picture in the gallery that 
contains the portraits of the beauties of succes- 
sive centuries, each in the dress of her respec- 
tive day, her drapery will not deviate, more 
than that of her rivals, from the standard of his 



ESSAY UPON SCOTTISH POETRY. 



97 



taste, aud he will give the palm to her who ex- 
cels in the lineaments of nature. 

Burns wrote prolesscclly for the peasantry of 
his country, and by them their native dialect is 
uaiversally relished. To a numerous class of 
the natives of Scotland of another description, 
it may also be considered as attractive in a dif- 
ferent point of view. Estranged from their 
native soil, aud spread over foreign lands, the 
idiom of their country unites with the senti- 
ments and the descriptions on which it is em- 
ployed, to recall to their minds the interesting 
scenes of infancy and youth — to awaken many 
pleasing, many tender recollections. Literary 
men, residing at Edinburgh or Aberdeen, can- 
jaot judge on this point for one hundred and 
fifty thousand of their expatriated countrymen. 

To the use of the Scottish dialect in one spe- 
cies of poetry, the composition of songs, the taste 
of the public has been for some time reconciled. 
The dialect in question excels, as has already 
been observed, in the copiousness and exactness 
of its terms for natural objects ; and in pastoral 
or rural songs, it gives a Doric simplicity, which 
is very generally approved. Neither does the 
regret seem well founded which some persons of 
taste have expressed, that Burns used this dia- 
lect in so many other of his compositions. His 
declared purpose was to paint the manners of 
rustic life among his " humble compeers," and 
it is not easy to conceive, that this could have 
been done with equal humour and effect, if he 
had not adopted their idiom. There are some, 
indeed, who will think the subject too low for 
poetry. Persons of this sickly taste will find 
their delicacies consulted in many a poUte aud 
learned author ; let them not seek for gratifica- 
tion in the rough and vigorous lines, in the un- 
bridled humour, or in the overpowering sensi- 
bility of this bard of nature. 

To determine the comparative merit of Burns 
would be no easy task. Many persons after- 
wards distinguished in literature, have been 
born in as humble a situation of life ; but it 
would be difficult to find any other who while 



earning his subsistence by daily labour, has 
written verses which have attracted and re- 
tained universal attention, and which are likely 
to give the author a permanent and distinguish- 
ed place among the followers of the muses. It 
he is deficient in grace, he is distinguished for 
ease as well as energy ; and these are indica- 
tions of the higher order of genius. The father 
of epic poetry exhibits one of his heroes as ex- 
celling in strength, another in swiftness — to 
form his perfect warrior, these attributes are 
combined. Every species of intellectual supe- 
riority admits, perhaps, of a similar arrange- 
ment. One writer excels in force — another in 
ease; he is superior to them both, in whom 
both these qualities are united. Of Homer 
himself it may be said, that like his own Achil- 
les, he surpasses his competitors in mobility as 
well as strength. 

The force of Burns lay in the powers of his 
understanding, and in the sensibility of his 
heart ; and these will be found to infuse the 
living principle into all the works of genius 
which seem destined to immortality. His sen- 
sibility had an uncommon range. He was a- 
llve to every species of emotion. He is one 
of the few poets that can be mentioned, who 
have at once excelled in humour, in tenderness, 
and in sublimity ; a praise unknown to the an- 
cients, and which in modern times is only due 
to Ariosto, to Shakspeare, and perhaps to Vol- 
taire. To compare the writings of the Scottish 
peasant with the works of these giants in liter- 
ature, might appear presumptuous ; yet it may 
be asserted that he has displayed the foot of 
Hercules. How near he might have approach- 
ed them by proper culture, with lengthened 
years, and under happier auspices, it is not for 
us to calculate. But while we run over the 
melancholy story of his life, it is impossible not 
to heave a sigh at the asperity of his fortune ; 
and as we survey the records of his mind, it is 
easy to see, that out of such materials have been 
reared the fairest and the most durable of the 
monuments of genius. 



33 



99 



THE SONGS. 



The poetry of Burns has been referred to as one of the causes which 
prevented the Scottish language from falHng into disuse. It was beginning 
to be discontinued as vulgar, even as the medium of oral communication ; 
and an obvious consequence of that state of the public taste was, that the 
Scottish song«, sweetly pathetic and expressive as many of them are, were 
not fashionable, but rather studiously avoided. The publication of his 
poetry changed this taste. Burns, followed by Scott, not merely revived 
the use of their native tongue in their own country, but gave it a cur- 
rency in the polite world generally ; an effect which was greatly assisted by 
Burns's songs, and not a little by what he did for the songs of his prede- 
cessors. He was a most devoted admirer of the lyrical effusions of the 
olden time, and became a diligent collector of the ancient words, as well 
as of the sets of the music. His remarks, historical and anecdotic, upon 
the several songs, are amusing and instructive ; and where there were 
blanks to be supplied, he was ready as powerful at a refit. To do all this, 
and at same time to double the stock of Scottish songs, was no small task ; 
and so well has it been executed, that in place of forming the amusement 
and delight of the Scots only, they have become a part, nay, have taken 
the lead, of the lyrical compositions used, and in fashion, throughout the 
British dominions. It is because of their intrinsic worth, as a branch of 
elegant amusement, that we have given the whole here, presented in two 
distinct parts : — The first part contains the songs befiyre Burns, with the 
remarks, by which he has so felicitously illustrated them. — The second 
part is formed of his own songs, and which are now brought together, in 
place of being scattered over, and mixed with the prose pieces, as hereto- 
fore. — The whole forming a complete collection of select Scottish Songs, 
such as cannot fail to be acceptable to the lovers of good taste, and inno- 
cent amusement in every country. 



100 



SELECT 



SCOTTISH SONGS. 



[The poet thus writes to Mrs. Diinlop : — ' I 
had an old grand-uncle, with whom my mo- 
ther lived awhile in her girlish years ; the 
good old man, for such he was, was long 
blind ere he died ; during which time, his 
highest enjoyment was to sit down and cry, 
while my mother would sing the simple old 
song of The Life and Age of Man.'' The 
song, as here given, was taken down fi"ora the 
recitation of the poet's mother, who had 
never seen a printed copy of it, — and had 
learned it from her mother in early youth.] 

THE LIFE AND AGE OF MAN: 

OR, 

A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF HIS NATURE, RISE 

AND FALL, ACCORDING TO THE TWELVE 

MONTHS OF THE YEAR. 

Tune-'" Isle of Kell." 

Upon the sixteen hunder year, 

of God and fifty three, 
Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear, 

as writings teetifie ; 
On January the sixteenth day, 

as I did ly alone. 
With many a sigh and sob did say, 

Ah ! Man is made to moan. 

Dame Natur, that excellent bride, 

did stand up me before, 
And said to me, thou must provide 

this life for to abhor : 
Thou seest what things are gone before, 

experience teaches thee ; 
Yet do not miss to remember this, 

that one day thou must die. 

Of all the creatures bearing life 

recall back to thy mind, 
Consider how they ebb and flow, 

each thing in their own kind ; 
Yet few of them have such a strain, 

as God hath given to thee ; 
Therefore this lesson keep in mind, — 

remember man to die. 



Man's course on earth I will report, 

if I have time and space ; 
It may be long, it may be short, 

as God hath giv'n him grace. 
His natur to the herbs compare, 

that in the ground ly dead ; 
And to each month add five year, 

and so we will procede. 

The first five years then of man's life 

compare to Januar ; 
In all that time but sturt and strife, 

he can but greet and roar. 
So is the fields of flowers all bare, 

by reason of the frost ; : I U) «ili 

Kept in the ground both safe and sound, , ,,,f , 

not one of them is lost. 

So to years ten I shall speak then 

of Februar but lack ; 
The child is meek and weak of spir't, 

nothing can undertake : 
So all the flow'rs, for lack of show'rs, 

no springing up can make, 
Yet birds do sing and praise their king, 

and each one choose their mate. 

Then in comes March, that noble arch, 

with wholesome spring and air. 
The child doth spring to years fifteen, 

with visage fine and fair ; 
So do the flow'rs with softening show'rs 

ay spring up as we see ; 
Yet nevertheless remember this, 

that one day we must die. 

Then brave April doth sweetly smile, 

the flow'rs do fair appear, 
The child is then become a man, 

to the age of twenty year ; 
If he be kind and well inclin'd, 

and brought up at the school. 
Then men may know if he foreshow 

a wise man or a fool. 

Then cometh May, gallant and gay, 
when fragrant flow'rs do thrive. 



SONGS. 



101 



The cbiid is then become a man, 

of age twenty and five : 
And for his life doth seek a wife, 

his life and years to spend ; 
Christ from above send peace and love, 

and grace nnto the end ! 

Then cometh June with pleasant tune, 

when fields with flow'rs are clad, 
And Phoebus bright is at his height, 

all creatures then are glad : 
Then he appears of thretty years, 

with courage bold and stout ; 
His nature so makes him to go, 

of death he hath no doubt. 

Then July comes with his hot climes, 

and constant in his kind, 
The man doth thrive to thirty-five, 

and sober grows in mind ; 
His children small do on him call, 

and breed him sturt and strife ; 



Then August old, both stout and bold, 

when flow'rs do stoutly stand ; 
So man appears to forty years, 

with wisdom and command ; 
And doth provide his house to guide, 

children and familie ; 
Yet do not miss t' remember this, 

that one day thou must die. 

September then comes with his train, 

and makes the flow'rs to fade ; 
Then man belyve is forty-five, 

grave, constant, wise, and staid. 
When be looks on, how youth is gone, 

and shall it no more see ; 
Then may he say, both night and day, 

have mercy. Lord, on me ! 

October's blast comes in with boast, 

and makes the flow'rs to fall ; 
Then man appears to fifty years, 

old age doth on him call : 
The almond tree doth flourish hie, 

and pale grows man we see ; 
Then it is time to use this line, 

remember, man, to die. 

November air maketh fields bare 

of flow'rs, of grasS), and corn ; 
Then man arrives to fifty-five, 

and sick both e'en and morn : 
Loins, legs, and thighs, without disease, 

makes him to sigh and say. 
Ah ! Christ on high have mind on me, 

and learn me for to die ! 

December fell baith sharp and snell, 
makes flow'rs creep in the ground ; 

Then man's threescore, both sick and sore, 
no soundness in him found. 



His ears and e'en, and teeth of bane, 
all these now do him fail ; 

Then may he say, both night and day, 
that death shall him assail. 

And if there be, thro' natiir stout, 

some that live ten years more ; 
Or if he creepeth up and down, 

till he comes to fourscore ; 
Yet all this time is but a line, 

no pleasure can he see ; 
Then may he say, both night and day, 

have mercy, Lord, on nie ! 

Thus have I shown you as I can, 

the course of all mens' life ; 
We will return where we began, 

but either sturt or strife : 
Dame Memorie doth take her leave, 

she'll last no more, we see ; 
God grant that I may not you grieve, 

Ye'll get nae mair of me. 



BESS THE GAWKIE. 

This song shews that the Scottish Muses did 
not all leave us when we lost Ramsay and Os- 
wald,* as I have good reason to hi'liove that 
the verses and music are both posterior to the 
days of these two gentlemen. — It is a beautiful 
song, and in the genuine Scots taste. We have 
few pastoral compositions, I mean the pastoral 
of nature, that are equal to this. — Burns. 

Blythe young Bess to Jean did say. 
Will ye gang to yon sunny brae, 
Where flocks do feed and herds do stray, 

And sport awhile wi' Jamie .? 
Ah na, lass, I'll no gang there, 
Nor about Jamie tak nae care, 
Nor about Jamie tak nae care. 

For he's taen up wi* Maggy ! 

For hark, and I will tell you, lass. 
Did I not see your Jamie pass, 
Wi' meikle gladness in his face. 

Out o'er the muir to Maggy. 
I wat he gae her mony a kiss, 
And INIaggy took them ne'er amiss ; 
'Tween ilka smack, p]e;is'd her with this, 

That Bess was but a gawkie. 

For when a civil kiss I seek. 

She turns her head, and thraws her cheek. 



* Oswald was a music-seller in London, about the 
year 17.50. He published a larfje collection of Scottish 
tunes, which he called The Caledonian Pocket Compa- 
nion. Mr. Tytlcr observes, that his genius in compo- 
sition, joined "to his t.xstc in the performance of Scot- 
tish music, was natural and patlictic. TJiis song has 

I been imputed to a clcrgym.in — Mr. Morehead Of Urr 

[ in Calloway, 



i02 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And for an hour she'll scarcely speak ; 

Who'd not call her a gavvkie ? 
But sure my Maggie has mair sense, 
She'll gie a score without offence ; 
Now gie me ane unto the mense, 

And ye shall be my dawtie. 

O, Jamie, ye ha'e mony tane, 
But I will never stand for ane, 
Or twa, when we do meet again ; 

Sae ne'er think me a gawkie. 
Ah, na, lass, that ne'er can be, 
Sic thoughts as these are far from me. 
Or ony that sweet face that see. 

E'er to think thee a gawkie. 

But whisht ! — nae mair of this we'll speak, 
For yonder Jamie does us meet ; 
Instead of Meg he kiss'd sae sweet, 
I trow he likes the gawkie. 

dear bess, I hardly knew. 

When I came by, your gown sae new, 

1 think you've got it wat wi' dew ; 

Quoth she, that's like a gawkie : 

It's wat wi' dew, and 'twill get rain, 
And I'll get gowns when it is gane, 
Sae you may gang the gate you came, 

And tell it to yoiir dawtie. 
The guilt appear'd in Jamie's cheek ; 
He cry'd, O cruel maid, but sweet, 
If I should gang anither gate, 
: I ne'er could meet my dawtie. 

The lasses fast frae him they flew. 
And left poor Jamie sair to rue, 
That ever Maggy's face he knew, 

Or yet ca'd Bess a gawkie. 
As they went o'er the rauir they sang ; 
The hills and dales with echoes rang, 
The hills and dales with echoes rang, 

Gang o'er the muir to Maggy ' 



FAIR ANNIE OF LOCHROYAN. 

(ORIGINAI. SONG OF OH OPEN THE DOOR, 

LORD GREGORY). 

It is somewhat sing>ilar, that in Lanark, 
Renfrew, Ayr, Wigton, Kirkcudbright, and 
Dumfries-shires, there is scarcely au old song 
or tune which, from the title, &;c. can be gues- 
sed to belong to, or be the production of these 
counties. This, I conjecture, is one of these 
very few ; as the ballad, whieh is a long one, 
is called both by tradition and in printed collec- 
tions. The Lass o' Lochroyan, which I take to 
be Lochroyan in Galloway. — Burns. 

Sweet Annie built a bonnie ship. 

And set her on the sea ; 
The sails were a' of the damask silk, 

The masts of silver free. 



The gladsome waters sung below, 

And the sweet wind sung above- 
Make way for Annie of Lochroyan, 
She comes to seek her love. 

A gentle wind came with a sweep. 

And stretched her silken sail, 
When up there came a reaver rude, 

With many a shout and hail : 
O touch her not, my mariners a'. 

Such loveliness goes free ; 
Make way for Annie of Lochroyan, 

She seeks Lord Gregorie. 

The moon looked out with all her stars, 

The ship moved merrily on. 
Until she came to a castle high. 

That all as diamonds shone : 
On every tower there streamed a. light, 

On the middle tower shone three — 
Move for that tower my mariners a', 

My love keeps watch for me. 

She tooTf her young son in her arms, 

And on the deck she stood — 
The wind rose with an angry gust. 

The sea wave wakened rude. 
Oh open the door, Lord Gregory, love ; 

Oh open and let me in ; 
The sea foam hangs in my yellow hair. 

The surge dreeps down my chin. 

All for thy sake, Lord Gregoiy, love, 

' have sailed the perilous way. 
And thy fair son is 'tween my breasts, 

And he'll be dead ere day. 
The foam hangs on the topmost (jliff, 

The fires run on the sky. 
And hear you not your true hwe's voice, 

And her sweet baby's cry ? 

Fair Annie turned her round about. 

And tears began to flow — 
May never a baby suck a breast 

Wi' a heart sae fou of woe. 
Take down, take down that silver mast, 

Set up a mast of tree. 
It does nae become a forsaken ^ame 

To sail sae royallie. 

Oh read my dream, my mother, dear — 

I heard a sweet babe greet. 
And saw fiiir Annie of Lochroyan 

Lie cauld dead at my feet. 
And loud and loud his mother laughed — 

Oh sights mair sure than sleep, 
I saw fair Annie, and heard her voice. 

And her baby wail and weep. 

O he went down to yon sea side 

As fast as he could fare. 
He saw fair Annie and her sweet babe, 

But the wild wind tossed them sair ; 
And hey Annie, and how Annie, 

And Annie wjnna ye bide ? 



SONGS 



103 



But aye the lualr he called Aunie, 
The broader grew the tide. 

And hey Aunie, and how Annie, 

Dear Annie speak to me, 
But aye the louder he cried Annie, 

The louder roared the sea. 
The wind waxed loud, the sea grew rough. 

The ship sunk nigh the shore, 
Fair Annie floated through the foam, 

But the baby rose no more. 

O first he kissed her cherry cheek, 

And then he kissed her chin. 
And syne he kissed her rosy Ups, 

But there was nae breath within. 
O my love's love was true as light. 

As meek and sweet was she — 
My mother's hate was strong as death, 

And fiercer than the sea. 



ROSLIN CASTLE. 

These beautiful verses were the production 
of a Richard Hewit, a young man that Dr. 
Blacklock, to whom I am indebted for the auec - 
dote, kept for some years as an amanuensis. I 
do not know who was the author of the second 
song to the tune. Tytler, in his amusing his- 
tory of Scots music, gives the. air to Oswald ; 
but in Oswald's own collection of Scots tunes, 
where he affixes an asterisk to those he himself 
composed, he does not make the least claim to 
the tune. — Burns. 

'Twas in that season of the year. 
When all things gay and sweet appeal, 
That Colin, with the morning ray, 
Arose and sung his rural lay. 
Of Nanny's charms the shepherd sung, 
The hills and dales with Nanny rung ; 
While Rosliu Castle heard the swain, 
And echoed back the cheerful strain. 

Awake, sweet INIuse ! the breathing spring, 
"With rapture warms ; awake and sing ! 
Awake and join the vocal throng. 
Who hail the morning with a song ; ' 
To Nanny raise the cheerful lay, 
O ! bid her haste and come away ; 
In sweetest smiles herself adorn. 
And add new graces to the morn ! 

O, hark, my love ! on ev'ry spray. 
Each feather'd warbler tunes his lay ; 
'Tis beauty fires the ravish'd throng, 
And love inspires the melting song : 
Then let my raptur'd notes arise, 
For beauty darts from Nanny's eyes ; 
And love my rising bosom warms, 
And fills my soul with sweet alarms. 



O ! come, my love ! thy Coliu's lay 

With rapture calls, O come away ! 

Come, while the Muse this wreath shall twine 

Around that modest brow of thine ; 

O ! hither haste, and with thee bring 

That beauty blooming like the spring ; 

Those graces that divinely shine. 

And charm this ravish'd breast of mine ! 



SAW YE JOHNNIE CUIVIMIN? 
QUO' SHE. 

This song for genuine humour in the verses, 
and lively originality in the air, is unparalleled. 
I take it to be very old. — Bukns. 

Saw ye Johnnie cummin ? quo' she. 
Saw ye Johnnie cummin, 

saw ye Johnnie cummin, quo' she ; 
Saw ye Johnnie cummin, 

Wi' his blue bonnet on his head, 
And his doggie runnin, quo' she ; 
And his doggie runnin ? 

Fee him, father, fee him, quo' she ; 

Fee him, father, fee him : 
For he is a gallant lad. 

And a weel doin' ; 
And a' the wark about the house 

Gaes wi' me when I see him, quo' she j 

Wi' me when I see him. 

What will I do wi' him, hussy ? 

What will I do wi' him ? 
He's ne'er a sark upon his back. 

And 1 hae nane to gie him. 

1 hae twa sarks into my kist, 

Aud ane o' them I'll gie him. 
And for a mark of mair fee, 

DIuna stand wi' him, quo' she ; 
Dinna stand wi' him. 

For weel do I lo'e him, quo' she ; 

Weel do I lo'e him : 
O fee him, father, fee him, quo' she j 

Fee him, father, fee him ; 
He'll baud the pleugh, thrash i' the bai'D, 

And lie wi' me at e'en, quo' she ; 

Lie wi' me at e'en. 



CLOUT THE CALDRON. 

A TRADITION is mentioned in the Bee, that 
the second Bishop Chisholm, of Dunblane, used 
to say, that if he were going to be hanged, no- 
tliing would soothe his mind so much by tha 
way, as to hear Clout the Caldron played.^ 



104 



BURNS' WORKS. 



I have met wltt another tradition, that the 
old song to this tune, 

Hae ye ony pots or pans, 
Or onie broken chanlers, 

was composed on one of the Kenmure family, in 
the Cavalier times ; and alluded to an amour he 
had, while under hiding, in the disguise of an 
itinerant tinker. The air is also known by the 
name of 

The Blacksmith and his Apron, 

which from the rythym, seems to have been a 
line of some old song to the tune. — Burns. 

Have you any pots or pans, 

Or any broken chandlers ? 
I am a tinkler to my trade, 

And newly come frae Flanders, 
As scant of siller as of grace. 

Disbanded, we've a bad run j 
Gar tell the lady of the place, 

I'm come to clout her caldron. 

Fa adrie, didle,' didle, &c. 

Madam, if you have wark for me, 

I'll do't to your contentment. 
And dinna care a single flie 

For any man's resentment ; 
For, lady fair, though I appear 

To ev'ry ane a tinkler. 
Yet to yoursel I'm bauld to tell, 

I am a gentle j Inker. 

Fa adrie, didle, didle, &c. 

Love Jupiter into a swan 

Turn'd for his lovely Leda ; 
He like a bull o'er meadows ran. 

To carry aff Europa. 
Then may not I, as well as he, 

To cheat your Argos blinker, 
And win your love, like mighty Jove, 

Thus hide me in a tinkler ? 

Fa adrie, didle, didle, &c. 

Sir, ye appear a cunning man. 

But this fine plot you'll fail in, 
For there is neither pot nor ])an 

Of mine you'll drive a nail in. 
Then bind your budget on your back. 

And nails up in your apron, 
For I've a tinkler under tack 

That's us'd to clout my caldron. 
Fa adrie, didle, didle, &c. 



SAW YE NAE MY PEGGY? 

This charming song is much older, and in- 
deed superior, to Ramsay's verses, " The Toast," 
as he calls them. There is another set of the 



the original one, but though it has a very great 
deal of merit, it is not quite ladies' reading — - 
Burns. 

Saw ye nae my Peggy, 
Saw ye nae my Peggy, 
Saw ye nae my Peggy, 

Coming o'er the lea ? 
Sure a finer creature 
Ne'er was form'd by nature. 
So complete each feature, 

So divine is she. 

O ! how Peggy charms me ; 
Every look still warms me ; 
Every thought alarms me, 

Lest she love nae me. 
Peggy doth discover 
Nought but charms all over ; 
Nature bids me love hei", 

That's a law to me. 

Who would leave a lover, 
To become a rover ? 
No, I'll ne'er give over, 

'Till I happy be. 
For since love inspires me, 
As her beauty fires me, 
And her absence tires me, 'S 

Nought can please but she. 

When I hope to gain her, 
Fate seems to detain her, 
Cou'd I but obtain her, 
Happy wou'd I be ! 
I'll ly down before her, 
Bless, sigh, and adore her. 
With faint looks implore her, 
'Till she pity me. 

The original words, for they can scarcely be 
called verses, seem to be as follows ; a song fa- 
miliar from the cradle to every Scottish ear. 

Saw ye ray IVIaggle, 
Saw ye my Maggie, 
Saw ye my Maggie, 
Linkin o'er the lea ? 

High kilted was she. 
High kilted was she, 
High kilted was she. 

Her coat aboon her knee. 

What mark has your Maggie, 
What mark has your Maggie, 
What mark has your Maggie, 
That ane may ken her be ? (by") 

Though it by no means follows that the sil- 
liest verses to an air must, for that reason, be 
the original song ; yet I take this ballad, of 
which I have quoted part, to be the old verses. 
The two songs in Ramsay, one of them evi- 



words, much older still, and which I take to be jdeutly his own, are never to be met with ia the 



SONGS. 



105 



fire-side circle of oui- po;isaiitry ; while that 
which I take to be the old song-, is in every 
shepherd's mouth, liamsmj, I suppasc, had 
thought the old verses unwortliy of a place in 
his collection. — Burns. 



FYE, GAE RUB HER O'ER WI' STRAE. 

It is self-evident that the first four lines of 
this song are part of a soug more ancient than 
Ramsay's beautiful verses which are annexed to 
them. As music is the language of nature ; and 
poetry, particularly songs, are always less or 
more localized (if I may be allowed the verb) 
by some of the modifications of time and place, 
this is the reason why so many of our Scots air 
have outlived their original, and perhaps many 
subsequent sets of verses ; except a smgle name, 
or phrase, or sometimes one or two lines, simply 
to distinguish the tunes by. 

To this day among peo])le who know nothing 
of Ramsay's verses, the following is the song, 
and all the song that ever I heard : — Burns. 

Gin yc meet a bonnie lassie, 

Gie her a kiss and let her gae ; 
But gin ye meet a dirty hizzle, 

Fye, gar rub her o'er wi' strae. 

Fye, gae rub her, rub her, rub her, 

Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae : 
An' gin ye meet a dirty hizzle, 

Fye, gar rub her o'er wi' strae. 



Look up to Pentland's tow'ring tap, 
Bury'd beneath great wreaths of snaw, 

O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scar, and slap, 
As high as ony Roman wa.* 

Driving their baws frae whins or tee. 
There's no nae gowfers to be seen ; 

Nor dousser fowk wysing a-jee 

The byass-bouls on Tamson's green. 

Then fling on coals, and ripe the ribs, 
And beck the house baith butt and ben ; 

That mutchkiu stowp it hads but dribs, 
Then let's get in the tappit hen. 

Good claret best keeps out the cauld, 
And drives away the winter soon ; 

It makes a man baith gast wd bauld, 
And heaves his saul beyond the moon. 

Leave to the gods your ilka care. 

If that they think us worth their while, 

They can a rowth of blessings spare. 
Which will our fashions fears beguile. 

For what they have a mind to do, 

That will they do, should we gang wood j 



If they conmiand the storms to blaw, 
Then upo' sight the hailstiilns thud^ 

But soon as ere they cry, " Be quiet,' 

The blatt'rlug winds dare nae mair mOvej 

But cnur into their caves, and wait 
The high command of supreme Jov'ia 

Let neist day come as it thinks fit, 
The present minute's only ours ; 

On pleasure let's employ our wit, 

And laugh at fortune's fickle powers. 

Be sure ye dinna quat the grip 

Of ilka joy when ye are young, 
Before auld age your vitals nip, 

And lay j^e twafald o'er a rung. 

Sweet youth's a blythe and heartsorae time ; 

Then, lads and lasses, while it's May, 
Gae pou the gowan in its prime, 

Before it wither and decay. 

Watch the saft minutes of delyte, 

When Jenny speaks beneath her breath, 

And kisses, laying a' the wyte 
On you, if she kepp ony skaith. 

" Halth, ye're Ill-bred," she'll smiling say ; 

" Ye'U worry me, ye greedy rook ;" 
Syne frae your arms she'll rin away. 

And hide hersell in some dark nook. 

Her laugh will lead you to the place 
Where lies the happiness you want. 

And plainly tells you to your face, 
Nineteen nay-says are hafi" a grant. 

Now to her heaving bosom cling. 

And sweetly toolie for a kiss, 
Frae her fair finger whop a ring. 

As talken of a future bless. 

These bennisons, I'm very sure. 
Are of the gods' Indulgent grant ; 

Then, surly carles, whisht, forbear 
To plague us with your whining cant. 



THE LASS O' LIVISTON. 

The old song, in three eight -line stanzas, is 
well known, and has merit as to wit and hu- 
mour ; but it is rather unfit for insertion. — It 
begins, 

TiiK bonnie lass o' Liviston, 

Her name ye ken, her name ye ken, 

And she has written in her contract. 
To lie her lane, to lie her lane. 
&c, &c. 



34 



106 



BURNS' WORKS. 



THE LAST TIME I CAME O'ER THE 
BIUIR. 

Ramsay found the first line of this song, 
which had been preserved as the title of the 
chai'ming air, and then composed the rest of the 
verses to suit that line. This has alu'ays a finer 
effect than composing English words, or words 
with an idea foreign to the spirit of the old title. 
Where old titles of songs convey any idea at all, 
it will generally be found to be quite in the 
spirit of the air. — Burxs. 

The last time I came o'er the rauir, 

I left my love behind me : 
Ye pow'rs ! what pain do I endure, 

When soft ideas mind me. 
Soon as the ruddy morn display 'd 

The beaming day ensuing, 
I met betimes my lovely maid, 

In fit retreats for wooing. 

Beneath the cooling shade we lay. 

Gazing and chastely sporting ; 
We kiss'd and promis'd time away, 

Till night spread her black curtain : 
I pitied all beneath the skies, 

Ev'n kings, when she was nigh, me j 
In raptures I beheld her eyes, 

Which could but ill deny me. 

Should I be call'd where cannons roar. 

Where mortal steel may wound me ; 
Or cast upon some foreign shore, 

Where dangers may surround me ; 
Yet hopes again to see my love, 

To feast on glowing kisses, 
Shall make my cares at distance move, 

In prospect of such blisses. 

In all my soul there's not one place 

To let a rival enter ; 
Since she excels in ev'ry grace, 

In her my love shall centre. 
Sooner the seas shall cease to flow. 

Their waves the Alps shall cover ; 
On Greenland's ice shall roses grow, 

Before I cease to love her. 

The next time I gang o'er the muir. 

She shall a lover find me ; 
And that my faith is firm and pure, 

Though I left her behind me. 
Then Hymen's sacred bonds shall chain 

My heart to her fair bosom ; 
There, while my being does remain. 

My love more fresh shall blossom. 



The Weaver and his Shttttle, O, which 
though sung much quicker, is every note the 
very tune. 

Whex I was in my se'nteen year, 

I was baith blythe and bonny, 
O the lads loo'd me baith far and near, 

But I loo'd nane but Johnny : 
He gain'd my heart in twa three weeks, 

He spake sae blythe and kindly ; 
And I made him new gray breeks. 

That fitted him most finely. 

He was a handsome fellow ; 

His humour was baith frank and free. 
His bonny locks sae yellow, 

Like gowd they glitter'd in my ee ; — 
His dirapl'd chin and rosy cheeks, 

And face sae fair and ruddy ; 
And then a-days his gray breeks. 

Was neither auld nor duddy. 

But now they're threadbare worn, 

They're wider than they wont to be ; 
They're tashed-like,* and sair torn, 

And clouted sair on ilka knee. 
But gin I had a simmer's day. 

As I have had right mony, 
I'd make a web o' new gray, 

To be breeks to my Johnny. 

For he's weel wordy o' them. 

And better gin I had to gie, 
And I'll tak pains upo' them, 

Frae fauts I'll strive to keep them free. 
To dead him weel shall be my care, 

And please him a' my study ; 
But he maun wear the auld pair 

Awee, tho' they be duddy. 

For when the lad was in his prime. 

Like him there was nae mony. 
He ca'd me aye his bonny thing, 

Sae wha wou'd na lo'e Johnny ? 
So I lo'e Johnny's gray breeks. 

For a' the care they've gi'en me yet, 
And gin we live anither year, 

We'll keep them hale between us yet. 

Now to conclude, — his gray breeks, 

I'll sing them up wi' mirth and glee ; 
Here's luck to a' the gray steeks. 

That show therasells upo' the knee ! 
And if wi' health I'm spared, 

A' wee while as I may, 
I shall hae them prepared. 

As weel as ony that's o' gray. 



JOHNNY'S GRAY BREEKS. 

Though this has certainly every evidence of 
being a Scottisn air, yet there is a well-known 
tune and song in the Noi th of Ireland, called, 



* Stained. 



SONGS. 



107 



MAY EVE, OR KATE OF ABERDEEN. 

Kate of Aberdeen, is, I believe, the Avork of 
poor Cunningliain the player ; of whom the fol- 
lowing anecdote, though told before, deserves a 
recital. A fat dignitary of the church coming 
past Cunningham one SunduTj as the poor poet 
was busy plying a fishing-rod in some stream 
near Durham, his native country, his reverence 
reprimanded Cunningham very severely for such 
an occupation on such a day. The poor poet, 
with that inoffensive gentleness of manners which 
was his peculiar characteristic, replied, that he 
hoped God and his reverence would forgive his 
seeming profanity of that sacred day, " as he had 
no dinner to eat, hut what lay at the bottom of 
that pool /" This, Mr. Woods, the player, who 
knew Cunningham well, and esteemed him much, 
assured me was true. — Burns. 

Thk silver moon's enamour'd beam, 

Steals softly through the night, 
To wanton with the winding stream, 

And kiss reflected light. 
To beds of state go balmy sleep, 

('Tis where you've seldom been), 
ISIay's vigil while the shepherds keep 

With Kate of Aberdeen ! 

Upon the green the virgins wait, 

In rosy chaplets gay. 
Till morn unbar her golden gate. 

And give the promis'd May. 
]\Iethinks I hear the maids declare 

The promis'd May, when seen. 
Not half ,so fragrant, half so fair, 

As Kate of Aberdeen ! 

Strike up the tabor's boldest notes. 

We'll rouse the nodding grove ; 
The nested birds shall raise their throats. 

And hail the maid I love : 
And see — the matin lark mistakes. 

He quits the tufted green ; 
Fond bird ! 'tis not the morning breaks, 

'Tis Kate of Aberdeen ! 

Now lightsome o'er the level mead. 

Where midnight fairies rove. 
Like them, the jocund dance we'll lead. 

Or tune the reed to love : 
For see the rosy May draws nigh, 

She claims a virgin queen ; 
And hark, the happy shepherds cry, 

*' 'Tis Kate of Aberdeen !" 



THE LASS OF PATIE'S MILL. 

' In Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 
this song is localized (a verb I jnust use for want 
of another to express my idea) somewhere in the 
North of ScotUud, and likewise is claimed by 



Ayrshire. — The following anecdote I had from 
the present Sir William Cunningham, of Robert- 
land, who had it from the last John, Earl of 
Loudon. — The then Earl of Loudon, father to 
Earl John, before mentioned, had Ramsay at 
Loudon, and one day walking together by the 
banks of Irvine water, near New-INIills, at a 
place yet called Patie's Mill, they were struck 
with the appearance of a beautiful country girl. 
His lordship observed, that she would be a fine 
theme for a song. — Allan lagged behind in re- 
turning to Loudon Castle, and at dinner produc- 
ed this identical song Burns. 

The lass of Patie s 'mill. 

So bonny, blythe, and gay, 
In spite of all my skill. 

She stole my heart away. 
When tedding of the hay. 

Bare-headed on the green, 
Love 'midst her locks did play. 

And wanton'd in her een. 

Her arms white, round, and smooth, 

Breasts rising in their dawn, 
To age it would give youth, 

To press 'em with his hand : 
Thro' all my spirits ran 

An ecstasy of bliss. 
When I such sweetness fand 

Wrapt in a balmy kiss. 

Without the help of art. 

Like flowers which grace the wild. 
She did her sweets impart, 

Whene'er she spoke or smil'd. 
Her looks they were so mild. 

Free from affected pride, 
She me to love beguil'd ; 

I wish'd her for my bride. 

O had I all that wealth, 

Hopeton's high mountains * fill, 
Insui-'d lang life and health, 

And pleasure at my will ; 
I'd promise and fulfil. 

That none but bonny she. 
The lass of Patie's mill 

Shou'd share the same wi' me. 



THE TURNIMSPIKE. 

There is a stanza of this excellent song for 
local humour, omitted in this set, — where I ha'« 
placed the asterisms.f 

Hersell pe highland sheutleman, 
Pe auld as Pothwell Priff, man ; 



* Thirty-three miles south-«cst of Edinburgh, 
wliere tlie Earl of Hopeton's inincs are. 

t Burns had placed the »sterisms between the 9th 
ami lOtli verses, The vcn>e is here restored. 



108 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And mony alterations seen 

Amang te lawland whig, man. 
Fal, §-c , 

First when her to the lawlands came, 
Nainsel was driving cows, man ; 

There was nae laws about him's nerse, 
About the preeks or trews, man. 

Nainsell did wear the philabeg. 
The plaid prick't on her shouder ; 

The guid daj'more hung pe her pelt, 
De pistol sharg'd wi' pouder. 

But for whereas these cursed preeks, 
Wherewith man's nerse be locket, 

O hon ! that e'er she saw the day ! 
For a' her houghs be prokit. 

Every ting in de highlands now 

Pe turu'd to alteration ; 
The sodger dwall at our door-sheek, 

And tat's te great vexation. 

Scotland be turn't a Ningland now, 
An' lavvs pring on de eager ; 

Nainsell wad dark him for his deeds, 
But oh ! she fear te sodger. 

Anither law came after dat, 

Me never saw de like, man ; 
They mak a lang road on de crund, 

And ca' him Turnimspike, man. 

An' wow ! she pe a ponny road, 
Like Louden corn-rigs, man ; 

Where twa carts may gang on her, 
An' no preak ithers legs, man. 

They sharge a penny for ilka horse, 
(In troth, they'll no pe sheaper) ; 

For nought but gaen upo' the crund. 
And they gie me a paper. 

They tak the horse then py te head, 
And tere tey mak her stan, man ; 

Me tell tern, me hae seen te day, 
Tey had na sic comman\ man, ■ 

Nae doubt, Nainsell maun traw his purse, 
And pay tern what him likes, man ; 

I'll see a shudgment on his toor ; 
Tat filthy Turnimspike, man. 

But I'll awa to the Highland hills, 
Where te'il a ane dare turn her. 

And no come near your Turnimspike. 
Unless it pe to purn her. 

Fal, 8fc. 



HIGHLAND LADDIE. 

As this was a favourite theme with our later 
Scottish muses, there are several airs and songs 
of that name. That which I take to be the 
oldest, is to be found in the Musical Museum, 
beginning, I hue been at Crookie-den. — 

I HAE been at Croohie-dcn,* 

My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ; 

Viewing Willie and his men, 

JNIy bonuie laddie. Highland laddie. 

Tliere our faes that burnt and slew. 
My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ; 

There, at last, they gat their due. 
My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie. 

Satan sits in his black nenk, 

My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ; 

Breaking sticks to roast the Duke, 
]My bonnie laddie. Highland laddie : 

The bluidy monster gae a yell, 

IMy bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ; 

And loud the laugh gacrl round a' hell ! 
JMy bonnie laddie. Highland laddie. 

One of my reasons is, that Oswald has it in his 
collection by the name of Tlie anld Highland 
Laddie. — It is also known by the name of 
Jinglan Johnie, which is a well known song of 
four or five stanzas, and seems to be an earlier 
song than Jacobite times. Asa proof of this, it 
is little known to the peasantry by the name of 
Hir/hland Laddie ; while every body knows 
Jinglan Jolinie. The song begins, 

Jinglan John, the melckle man, 

He met wi' a lass was blythe and bonnie. 

Another IJifjland. Laddie is also in the 3fu- 
seinn, vol. v. wlrich I take to be Ramsay's ori- 
ginal, as he has borrowed the chorus " O my 
bonnie Highland, lad, §•€." It consists of three 
stanzas, besides the chorus ; and has humour in 
its composition — it is an excellent but somewhat 
licentious song. — It begins, 

As I cam o'er Cairney-Mount, 

And down amang the blooming heathei', &c. 

This air, and the common Highland Laddie, 
seem only to be different sets. 

Another Highland Laddie, also in the Mu- 
seum, vol. V. is the time of several .Jacobite frag- 
ments.— One of these old songs to it, only exists, 
as far as I know, in these four lines — 

Whare hae ye been a' day, 

Bonnie laddie. Highland laddie ? 
Down the back o' Bell's brae, 

Courtin INlaggie, courtin IMaggie, 

* A cant name for Hell 



Another of tliis name is Dr. Al•^e^ 
called, the new JJiqltland Lddilir. 



SONGS 

heautif'ul air 



109 



THE BLATTIIIUE O'T. 

The following is a set of this song, which 
was the earliest song I remember to have got by 
heart. When a child, an old woman sung it to 
me, and I picked it up, every word, at first 
hearing. 

WiM.Y weel I mind, I lent you my hand. 
To sing you a song which you did me command ; 
But my memory's so bad, I had almost forgot 
That you callM it the geai- and tlie blaithrie o't. 

I'll not sing about confusion, delusion, or pride, 
I'll sing about a laddie was for a virtuous bride ; 
For virtue is an ornament that time will never 

rot, 
And preferable to gear and the blaithrie o't. 

Tho' my lassie hae nae scarlets or silks to put on 
We envy not the greatest that sits upon the 
throne ; 

1 wad rather hae my lassie, tho' she cam in her 

smock, 
Than a princess wi' the gear and the blaithrie o't. 

Tho' we hae nae horses or menzie at command, 
We will toil on our foot, and we'll work wi'our 

hand ; 
And when wearied without rest, we'U find it 

sweet in any spot. 
And we'll value not the gear and the blaithrie o't. 

If we hae ony babies, we'll count them as lent ; 
Hae we less, hae we mair, we will aye l)e content ; 
For they say they hae niair pleasure that wins 

but a groat. 
Than the miser wi' his gear and the blaithrie o't. 

I'll not meddle wi' th' affairs o' the kirk or the 

queen ; 
They're nae matters for a sang, let them sink 

let them swim. 
On your kirk I'll ne'er encroach, but I'll hold it 

still remote, 
Sae tak this for the gear and the blaithrie o't. 



And how the lass that wants it is by the lads 

forgot, 
May the shame fa' the gear and the blaithrie o't ! * 

Tockic was the laddie that held the pleugh. 
Hut now he's got gowd and gear eneugh ; 
lie thinks nae mair of me that wears the plaiden 

coat J 
IMay the shame fa' tlie gear and the blaithrie o't ! 

Jenny was the lassie that mucked the byre, 

But now she is clad in her silken attire. 

And Jockie says he lo'es her, and swears he's 

me forgot ; 
May the shame fa' the gear and the blaithrie o't ! 

But all this shall never daunton me, 

Sae Ling's I keep my fancy free : 

For tlie lad that's sae inconstant, he's not worth 

a groat ; 
May the shame fa' the gear and the blaitlirie o't ! 



THE BLAITHRIE O'T. 

When I think on this warld's pelf, 

And the little wee share I have o't to myself, 



* The following observation was found in a memo- 
randum book belonging to Burns: 

Tfie Highlanders' Prayer at Sheriff-Muir. 
" O L— d be thou witli us ; but, if thou be Tioi with 
us, be not against us ; fmt Uhvq it betmen the reef coaif 
a^idusJ" 



TWEEDSIDE. 

In Ramsay's Tea-table Miaccllamj, he tells 
that about thirty of the songs in that publi- 
cation were the works of some yoimg gentlemen 
of his acquaintance ; which songs are marked 

with the letters 1). C, &c Old ]Mr. Tytler, 

of Woodliouseloo, the worthy and able defender 
of the beauteous Queen of Scots, told me that 
the songs marked C, in the Tca-tahlc, were the 
composition of a ]Mr. Crawford, of the house of 
Achinames, who w^as afterwards unfortunately 

drowned coming from France As Tytler was 

most intimately acquainted with Allan Ramsay., 
I think the anecdote may be depended on. Of 
consequence, the beautiful song of Tweedside ia 
Mr. Crawford's, and indeed does great honour 
to his poetical talents. He was a Robert Craw- 
ford ; the Mary he celebrates, was Mary Stuart, 
of the Castlemilk family, afterwards married to 
a Mr. John Belches. 

What beauties does Flora disclose ! 

How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed ! 
Yet Mary's still sweeter than those ; 

Both nature and fancy cxc^eed. 
Nor daisy, nor sweet blushing rose, 

Not all the gay flowers of the field. 
Nor Tweed gliding gently through those, 

Such beauty and pleasure does yield. 

The warblers are heard in the grove. 
The linnet, the lark, and the thrush, 

The blackbird and swect-cooing dove, 
With music enchant ev'ry bush. 



* Shame fall the gear and the blacTry o't, is the turn 
of an old Scottish song, spoken when a young hand- 
some girl marries an old man, upon tJie account of his 
wealth.—KeUy's :Sqi)U Proverbs, 



110 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Come, let us go forth to the mead, 
Let us see how the primroses spring. 

We'll lodge in some village on Tweed, 
And love while the feather'd folks sing. 

How does my love pass the long day ? 

Does Mary not 'tend a few sheep ? 
Do they never carelessly stray, 

While happily she lies asleep ? 
Tweed's murmurs should lull her to rest ; 

Kind nature indulging my bliss. 
To relieve the soft pains of my breast, 

I'd steal an ambrosial kiss. 

*Tis she does the virgins excel. 

No beauty with her may compare ; 
Love's graces around her do dwell ; 

She's fairest, where thousands are fair. 
Say, charmer, where do thy flocks stray ? 

Oh ! tell me at noon where they feed ; 
Shall I seek them on sweet winding Tay, 

Or the pleasanter banks of the Tweed ? 

I have seen a song, calling itself the original 
Tweedside, and said to have been composed by 
a Lord Yester. It consisted of two stanzas, of 
which I still recollect the first. ^ 

When Maggy and I was acquaint, 

I carried my noddle fu' hie ; 
Nae lintwhite on a' the green plain, 

Nor gowdspink sae happy as me : 
But I saw her sae fair, and I lo'ed ;. 

I woo'd, but I came nae great speed ; 
So now I maun wander abroad. 

And lay my banes far frae the Tweed. 

The last stanza runs thus : — Ed. 

To Meiggy my love I did tell, 

Saut tears did my passion express, 
Alas ! for I loo'd her o'erwell, 

An* the women loo sic a man less. 
Her heart it was frozen and cauld, 

Her pride had my ruin decreed ; 
Therefore I will wander abroad, 

And lay my banes far frae the Tweed. 



THE BOATIE ROWS. 

The author of the Boatie Hows, was a ]\Ir. 
Ewen of Aberdeen. It is a charming display of 
womanly affection mingling with the concerns 
and occupations of life. It is nearly equal to 
There's nae luck about the house. 

O WEEL may the boatie row, 
And better may she speed ; 
And leesome may the boatie row 
That wins my bairns bread : 
The boatie rows, the boatie rows, 
The boatie rows indeed ; 
And weel may the boatie row 
That wins the bairns bread. 



I cust * my line in Largo bay, 

And fishes I catch'd nine ; 

There was three to boil, and three to fry, 

And three to bait the line : 

The boatie rows, the boatie rows, 

The boatre rows indeed ; 

And happy be the lot of a' 

Who wishes her to speed. 

O weel may the boatie row. 
That fills a heavy creel,f 
And cleads us a' frae head to feet. 
And buys our porridge meal : 
The boatie rows, the boatie rows. 
The boatie rows indeed ; 
And happy be the lot of a' 
That wish the boatie speed. 

When Jamie vow'd he would be mine, 
And wan frae me my heart, 

muckle lighter grew my creel, 
He swore we'd never part : 

The boatie rows, the boatie rows. 
The boatie rows fu' weel ; 
And muckle lighter is the load, 
When love bears up the creel. 

My kurtch I put upo' my head. 
And dress'd mysel' fu' braw ; 

1 true my heart was douf an' wae. 
When Jamie gaed awa : 

But weel may the boatie row, 
And lucky be her part ; 
And lightsome be the lassie's care. 
That yields an honest heart. 

When Sawney, Jock, an' Janetie, 

Are up and gotten lear. 

They'll help to gar the boatie row, 

And lighten a' our care : 

The boatie rows, the boatie rows, 

The boatie rows fu' weel ; 

And lightsome be her heart that bears 

The murlain, and the creel. 

And when wi' age we're worn down, 
And hirpling round the door, 
They'll row to keep us dry and warm, 
As we did them before ; — 
Then weel may the boatie row. 
She wins the bairns bread ; 
And happy be the lot of a' 
That wish the boat to speed ! 



THE HAPPY MARRIAGE. 

Another, out very pretty Auglo-ScottisK 
piece. 



* Cast.— Tlie Aberdeenshire dialect, 
t An ojicr basket. 



SONGS. 



Ill 



How blest has my time beeu, what joys have I 

kno^v^l, 
Sioce wedlock's soft bondage made Jessy my 

own ! 
So joyful my heart is, so easy my chain, 
That freedom is tasteless, and roving a pain. 

Thro' walks grown with woodbines, as often we 

stray, 
Aroxmd us our boys and girls frolic and play : 
How pleasing their sport is ! the wanton ones 

see 
And borrow their looks from my Jessy and me. 

To try her sweet temper, oft times am I seen 
In revels all day with the nymphs on the green : 
Tho' painful my absence, my doubts she be- 
guiles, 
And meets me at night with complacence and 
smiles. 

What tho' on her cheeks the rose loses its hue, 
Her wit and good humour bloom aU the yeai* 

thro' ; 
Time still, as he flies, adds increase to her truth, 
And gives to her mind what he steals from her 

youth. 

Ye shepherds so gay, who make love to ensnare. 
And cheat, with false vows, the too credulous 

fair; 
In search of true pleasure, how vainly you roam ! 
To hold it for life, you must find it at home. 



Unto the yowes a milkin, kind sir, she says, 
With a double and adieu to thee fair May. 
What if I gang alang wi' thee, my ain pretty 
May, 

Wi' thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal-black 
hair ; 
Wad I be aught the warse o' that, kind sir, she 
says. 
With a double and adieu to thee fair May. 
&c. &c. 



THE POSIE. 

It appeals evident to me that Oswald com- 
posed his Roslin Castle on the modulation of 
this air. — In the second part of Oswald's, in the 
three first bars, he has either hit on a wonder- 
ful similarity to, or else he has entirely borrow- 
ed the three first bars of the old air ; and the 
close of both tunes is almost exactly the same. 
The old verses to which it was sung, when I 
took down the notes from a country girl's voice, 
had no great merit. — The following is a speci- 
men : 

There was a pretty May,* and a milkin she 
went ; 
Wi' her red rosy cheeks, and her coal-black 
hair : 
And she has met a young man a comin o'er the 
bent. 
With a double and adieu to thee fair May. 

O where are ye goin, my ain pretty May, 

Wi' thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal-black 
hair ? 



* Maid. 



THE POSIE. 

O LUVK will venture in, where it daur na weel 

be seen, 
O luve will venture in, where wisdom ance has 

been. 
But I will down yon river rove, amang th'C 

wood sae green. 
And a' to pu' a posie to my ain dear May. 

The primrose I will pu', the firstling o' the year, 

And I will pu' the pink, the emblem o' my dear. 

For she's the pink o' woman kind, and blooms 

without a peer ; 

And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

I'll pu' the budding rose, when Phcebus peeps 

in view. 
For it's like a baumy kiss o' her sweet bonie 

mou ; 
The hyacinth's for constancy wi' its unchang- - 

ing blue, 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

The lily it is pure, and the lily it is fair. 
And in her lovely bosom I'll place the lily there ; 
The daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air. 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May ; 

The hawthorn I will pu', wi' its locks o' siller 

gi-ey, 
Where, like an aged man, it stands at break o' 

day. 
But the songster's nest within the bush I winna 

tak away ; 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

The woodbine I will pu', when the e'ning star 

is near, 
And the diamond draps o' dew shall be her e'er 

sae clear ; 
The violet's for modesty which wecl she fa's to 

wear. 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

I'll tie the posie round wi' the silken band o' 

luve. 
And I'll place it in her breast, and I'll swear by 

a' above. 
That to my latest draught o' life the band shall 

ne'er renuivc, 
And this will be a pubie to n>y ain dear Mu)-. 



112 



BURNS' WORKS. 



MARY'S DREAM. 

The Mary here alluded to is generally sup- 
posed to be Miss Mary Macghie, daughter to 
the Laird of Airds, in Galloway. The poet 
was a Mr. Alexander Lowe, who likewise 
wrote another beautiful song, called Pompeifs 
Ghost. — I have seen a poetic epistle from him 
in North America, where he now is, or lately 
was, to a lady in Scotland. — By the strain of 
the verses, it appeared that they allude to some 
Jove disappointment. 

The moon had climb'd the highest hill, 

Which rises o'er the source of Dee, 
And from the eastern summet shed 

Her silver light on tow'r and tree : 
When Mary laid her down to sleep, 

Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea ; 
When soft and low a voice was heard, 

Saying, Mary, weep no more for me. 

She from her pillow gently rais'd 

Her head to ask, who there might be ; 

She saw young Sandy shiv'ring stand, 
With visage pale and hollow eye ; 

' O Mary, dear, cold is my clay, 
* It lies beneath a stormy sea ; 

< Far, far from thee, I sleep in death ; 

* So, Mary, weep uo more for me. 

* Three stormy nights and stormy days 

' We toss'd upon the raging main ; 
' And long we strove our bark to save, 

* But all our striving was in vain. 

* E'en then when horror chill'd my blood, 

' My heart was fiU'd with love for thee : 
' The storm is past, and I at rest ; 
' So, Mary, weep no more for me. 

' O maiden dear, thyself prepare, 

' We soon shall meet upon that shore, 
'Where love is free from doubt and care, 

' And thou and I shall part no more !' 
Loud crow'd the cock, the shadows fled. 

No more of Sandy could she see ; 
But soft the passing spirit said, 

" Sweet Mary, weep no more forme !" 



THE JOLLY BEGGAR. 

Said to Uave been composed oy King James 
v., on a frolic of his own. 

There was a jolly beggar, and a begging he 

was boun'. 
And he took up his quarters into a laud'art 
town. 
And well ijantj nae mair a rovintj^ 

Sae late into llie nhjld, 
Atirl we'll gamj nae mair a roving, hoys, 
JLet ilia imon shine ne\r sae hrhjld ! 



He wad neither ly in barn, nor yet wad he in 

byre, 
But in ahint the ha' door, or else afore the fire, 
And well (jang nae mair, §t 

The beggar's bed was made at e'en wi' good 

clean straw and hay, 
And in ahint the ha' door, and there the beggar 

lay, 

And tveUl gang nae mair, 8^c. 

Up raise the good man's dochter, and for to bar 

the door, 
And there she saw the beggar standin i' the 

floor. 

And ive'll gang nae mair, 8fc. 

He took the lassie in his arras, and to the bed 

he ran, 
O hooly, hooly wi' me, sir, ye'Il waken our 
' good man, 

And well gang nae mair, §-c. 

The beggar was a cunuin loon, and ne'er a 

word he spake. 
Until he got his turn done, syne he began to 

crack. 

And well gang 7iae mair, §*c. 

Is there ony dogs into this town ? maiden, tell 

me true. 
And what wad ye do wi' them, my hinny and 

my dow ? 

And we'll gang nae mair, §-c. 

They'll rive a' my mealpocks, and do me meikle 
Avrang, 

dool for the doing o't ! are ye the puir man ? 

And well gang nae mair, §*c. 

Then she took up the mealpocks and flang them 

o'er the wa'. 
The deil gae wi' the mealpocks, my maidenhead 

and a'. 

And well gang nae mair, §'f. 

1 took ye for some gentleman, at least the laird 

of Brodie ; 
O dool for the doing o't ! are ye the puir bodie ? 
And loell gang nae mair, §-c. 

He took the lassie in his arms, and gae her kisses 

three, 
Aiid four-and-twenty hunder merk to pay the 

nurice-fee, 

And ivell gang nae mair, §c. 

He took a horn frae his side, and blew baith 
loud and shrill, 

And four-and-twenty belted knights came skip- 
ping o'or the hill, 

And well gang nae mair, ^e. 



SONGS. 



113 



And he took out his little knife, loot a' his dud- 
dies fa', 

And he was the brawest gentleman that was 
aiuang them a'. 

And we'' II gang nae mair, Sfc. 

The beggar was a cliver loon, and he lap shoul- 
der height, 
O ay for sicken quartere as I gat yesternight ! 
And we'll gang nae mair, §-c. 



THE MAID THAT TENDS THE GOATS. 

BY MR. DUDGEON. 

This Dudgeon is a respectable farmer's son 
in Berwickshire. 

Up amang yon cliffy rocks 

Sweetly rings the rising echo, 
To the maid that tends the goats, 
Lilting o'er her native notes. 

Hark ! she sings, " Young Sandy's kind, 
An' he's promised ay to loe me ; 

Here's a brooch I ne'er sluill tine 
Till he's fairly married to me : 
Drive away ye drone Time, 
An' bring about our bridal day. 

" Sandy herds a flock o' sheep, 

Aften does he blaw the whistle, 
In a strain sae saftly sweet, 
Lammies list'ning daurna bleat. 

He's as fleet's the mountain roe, 
Hardy as the highland heather, 

Wading through the winter snow, 
Keeping ay his flock together ; 
But a plaid, wi' bare houghs. 
He braves the bleakest norlin blast. 

" Brawly he can dance and sing 

Canty glee or highland cronach ; 
Nane can ever match his fling. 
At a reel, or round a ring ; 

Wightly can he wield a rung, 
In a brawl he's ay the bangster : 

A' his praise can ne'er be sung 
By the langest-winded sangster. 
Sangs that sing o' Sandy 
Come short, though they were e'er sae lang." 



TARRY WOO. 

This is a very pretty song ; but I fancy that 
the first half stanza, as well as the tune itself, 
are much older than the rest of the words. 

Tarry woo, tarry woo, 
Tarry woo is ill to spin ; 
Card it well, card it well, 
Caid ij well ere ye begin. 



When 'tis carded, row'd and spun, 
Then the work is haflens done ; 
But when woven, drest and clean, 
It may be cleading for a queen. 

Sing, my bonny harmless sheep. 
That feed upon the mountain's steep, 
Bleating sweetly as ye go, 
Thro' the winter's frost and suow ; 
Hart, and hynd, and fallow-deer, 
No be half so useful are : 
Frae kings to him that hads the plow, 
Are all oblig'd to tarry woo. 

Up, ye shepherds, dance and skip. 
O'er the hills and vallies trip. 
Sing up the praise of tarry woo. 
Sing the flocks that bear it too ; 
Harmless creatures without blame, 
That dead the back, and cram the wame. 
Keep us warm and heaity fou ; 
Leese me on the tarry woo. 

How happy is the shepherd's life. 
Far frae courts, and free of strife. 
While the gimmers bleat and bae, 
And the lambkins answer mae : 
No such music to his ear ; — 
Of thief or fox he has no fear ; 
Sturdy Kent and Colli/ true. 
Will defend the tarry woo. 

He lives content, and envies none ; 
Not even a monarch on his throne, 
Tho' he the royal sceptre sways, 
Has not sweeter holidays. 
Who'd be a king, can ony tell, 
When a shepherd sings sae well ? 
Sings sae well, and pays his due, 
With honest heart and tarry woo. 



THE COLLIER'S BONNIE LASSIE. 

The first haJf stanza is much older than the 
days of Ramsay. — The old words began thus : — 

The collier has a dochter, and, O, she's won- 
der bonnie ! 

A laird he was that sought her, rich baith in 
lands and money. 

She wad na hae a laird, nor wad she be a lady ; 

But she wad hae a collier, the color o' her daddie. 



The collier has a oaughter. 

And O she's wonder bonny ; 
A laird he was that sought her. 

Rich baith in lands and money : 
The tutors watch'd the motion 

Of this young honest lover ; 
But love is like the ocean ; 

Wha cac jta depth discover ? 



35 



114 



BURNS' WORKS. 



He had the art to please ye. 

And was by a' respected ; 
His airs sat round him easy, 

Genteel, but unatrected. 
The collier's bounie lassie, 

Fair as the new-blown lilie, 
Ay sweet, and never saucy, 

Secur'd the heart of Willie. 

He lov'd beyond expression 

The charms that were about her, 
And panted for possession. 

His life was dull without her. 
After mature resolving, 

Close to his breast he held her 
In saftest flames dissolving. 

He tenderly thus tell'd her : 

My bonny collier's daughter, 

Let naething discompose ye, 
'Tis no your scanty tocher 

Shall ever gar me lose ye : 
For I have gear in plenty. 

And love says, 'Tis my duty 
To ware what heav'n has lent me 

Upon your wit and beauty. 



MY AIN KIND DEARIE— O. 

The old words of this song are omitted here, 
though much more beautiful than these insert- 
ed ; which were mostly composed by poor Fer- 
gusson, in one of his merry humours. — The old 
words began thus : — 

I'll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie, O, 
I'll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig, 

jMy ain kind dearie, O, 
Altho' the night were ne'er sae wat, 

And I were ne'er sae weary, O, 
I'll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig. 

My ain kind dearie, O. — 



Will ye gang o'er the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie, O ? 
And cuddle there sae kindlle. 

My ain kind dearie, O ? 
At thorny dike and birken-tree, 

We'll daff and ne'er be weary, O ; 
They'll scug ill een frae you and me, 

My ain kind dearie, O ! 

Nae herds, wi' kent or colly, there, 

Shall ever come to fear ye, O ; 
But lavrocks, whistling, in the air, 

Shall woo, like me, their dearie, O. 
While others herd their lambs and yowes 

And toil for warld's gear, my jo ; 
tJ})on the lea, my pleasure grows, 

Wi' thee my kiud dearie, O. 



DOWN THE BURN, DAVIE. 

I have been informed, that the tune of Down 
the Burn, Davie, was the composition of David 
Maigh, keeper of the blood slough hounds, be- 
longing to the Laird of Riddel, in Tweeddale. 

When trees did bud, and fields were green, 

And broom bloom'd fair to see ; 
When Mary was complete fifteen, 

And love laugh'd in her e'e ; 
Blythe Davie's blinks her heart did move, 

To speak her mind thus free, 
Gang doion the burn DaviCf love^ 

And I shall follow thee. 

Now Davie did each lad surpass, 

That dwalt on yon burn side, 
And Mary was the bonniest lass, 

Just meet to be a bride ; 
Her cheeks were rosie, red and white. 

Her een were bonnie blue ; 
Her looks were like Aurora bright, 

Her lips like dropping dew. 

As down the burn they took their way, 

What tender tales they said I 
His cheek to her's he aft did lay. 

And with her bosom play'd ; 



What pass'd, I guess, was harmless play, 

And naething sure unmeet ; 
For, ganging hame, I heard them say. 

They lik'd a walk sae sweet ; 
And that they aften should return, 

Sic pleasure to renew ; 
Quoth Mary, Love, I like the burn, 

And ay shall follow you. * 



BLINK O'ER THE BURN, SWEET 
BETTY. 

The old words, all that I remember, axe,— 

Blink over the burn, sweet Betty, 

It is a cauld winter night ; 
It rains, it hails, it thunders, 

The moon she gies nae light : 
It's a' for the sake o' sweet Betty, 

That ever I tint my way ; 
Sweet, let me lie beyond thee, 

Until it be break o' day. — 

O, Betty will bake my bread. 

And Betty will brew my ale, 
And Betty will be my love. 

When I come over the dale : 



* The last four lines of the third staiiz;!, [(ciiifj 
Mnncwh.it objectionable in point of rteliciicy, iue oniil- 
tcil. Ihirns alterod these lines. Had his alteratiun 
been atteniled with his Ubual BUCCCSB, it would have 
been adopted. 



SONGS. 



115 



Blink over the l)urn, sweet Betty, 
Bliuk over the l.urn to me, 

And wliile 1 hae life, dear lassie, 
]My aiu sweet Betty thou's bc- 



THERE'S NAE LUCK ABOUT THE 
HOUSE. 

This is one of the most beautiful songs in 
the Scots, or any other language. — The two 
lines, 

And will I see his face again ! 
And will I hear him speak ! 

as well as the two preceding ones, are unequall- 
ed almost by any thing I ever heard or read : 
and the Hues, 

The present moment is our ain, 
The neist we never saw. — 

are worthy of the first poet. — It is long poste- 
rior to Ramsay's days. — About the year 1771, 
or 72, it came first on the streets as a ballad ; 
and I suppose the composition of the song was 
not much anterior to that period.* 

And are ye sure the news is true ? 
And are ye sure he's weel ? 
Is this a time to talk o' wark ? 
Ye jads, lay by your wheel ! 
Is this a time to talk of wark, 
When Colin' s at the door? 
Gie me my cloak ! I'll to the quay, 
And see him come ashore. 

For there s nae luck about the house, 

There's nae luck ava ; 

There's little pleasure in the hoiise, 

When our gudemari's awa. 

Rise up, and mak a clean fire-side, 

Put on the muckle pat ; 

Gie little Kate her cotton gowu, 

And Jock his Sunday's coat ; 

And mak their shoon as black as slaes, 

Their hose as white as snaw ; 

It's a' to please my ain gudeman, 

He likes to see them braw. 

For there's nae luck, §c. 

There is twa hens upon the bauk, 

'Sbeen fed this month and mair ; 

IMak haste and thraw their necks about, 

That Colin weel may fare ; 

And spread the table neat and clean, 

(iar ilka thing look braw ; 

It's a for love of my gudeman,— 

For he's been long awa. 

For there's nae luck, S^c. 



O gie me down my bigonets. 

My bishop-satin gown ; 

lM)r I maun tell the bailie's wife 

That Odin's come to town ; 

INIy Sunday's shoon they maun gae on, 

My hose o' pearl blue. 

It's a' to please my aiu gudeman, 

For he's baith led and true. 

For there's nae luck, 8fc. 

Sae true's his words, sae smooth's his speech; 

His breath like caller air, 

His very foot has music in't. 

When he comes up the stair : 

And will I see his face again ! 

And will I hear him speak ! 

I'm dowright dizzy with the thought, 

In troth I'm like to greet ! 

Fur there's nae luck, 8fc. 

The cauld blasts of the winter wind, 

That thrilled thro' my heart. 

They're a' blaim by ; I hae him safe, 

'Till death we'll never part ; 

But what puts parting in my head ? 

It may be far awa ; 

The present moment is our ain, 

The neist we never saw ! 

For there's nae luck, §*c. 

Since Colin's well, I'm well content, 

I hae nae mair to crave ; 

Could I but live to mak him blest, 

I'm blest aboon the lave ; 

And will I see his face again ! 

And will I hear him speak ! 

I'm downright dizzy with the though 

In troth 1 'm like to greet ! 



* It is now ascertained tliat Rleikle, the translator 
of Camoens, >vas the author of this song. 



JOHN HAY'S BONNIE LASSIE. 

John Hay's Bonnie Lassie was daughter of 
John Hay, Earl, or INIarquis of Tweeddale, and 
late Countess Dowager of Roxburgh. — She died 
at Broomlands, near Kelso, some time between 
the years IT20 and 1740. 

By smooth winding Tay a swain was reclining, 
Aft cry'd he. Oh hey ! maun I still live pining 
IVIysel thus away, and daurna discover 
To my bonnie Hay that I am her lover ! 

Nae mair it will hide, the flame waxes stronger ; 
If she's not my bride, my days are nae langer : 
Then I'll take a heart, and try at a venture, 
Maybe, ere we part, my vows may content her. 

She's fresh as the Spring, and sweet as Aurora, 
When biids mount and sing, bidding day a good- 
morrow ; 
The swaird of the mead, cnamell'd wi' daisies, 
Looks withcr'd and dead when twin'd of her 
graces, 



116 



BURNS' WORKS. 



But if she appear where verdure invites her, 
The fountains run clear, and flowers smell the 

sweeter ; 
'Tis heaven to be by when her wit is a-flowing, 
Her smiles and bright eyes set my spirits a-glow- 

ing. 

The mair that I gaze, the deeper I'm wounded, 
Struck dumb wi' amaze, my mind is confounded ; 
I'm a' in a fire, dear maid, to caress ye, 
For a' my desire is Hay's bonnie lassie. 



THE BONNIE BRUCKET LASSIE. 

The idea of this song is to me very original : 
the two first lines are all of it that is old. The 
rest of the song, as well as those songs in the 
Museum marked 2\ are the works of an obscure, 
tippling, but extraordinary body of the name of 
Tytler, commonly known by the name of Sal- 
loon Tytler, from his having projected a balloon : 
A mortal, who, though ho drudges about Edin- 
burgh as a common printer, with leaky shoes, a 
sky-lighted hat, and knee-buckles as unlike as 
George-by-the-Grace-of-God, and Solomon-the 
Son-of-David ; yet that same unknown druuken 
mortal is author and compiler of three-fourths 
Elliot's pompous Encyclopedia Britannica, which 
he composed at half a guinea a week !* 

The bonnie brucket lassie 

She's blue beneath the e'en ; 
She was the fairest lassie 

That danced on the green : 
A lad he loo'd her dearly. 

She did his love return ; 
But he his vows has broken, 

And left her for to mourn. 

" My shape," she says, " was handsome, 

My face was fair and clean ; 
But now I'm bonnie brucket, 

And blue beneath the e'en : 
]My eyes were bright and sparkling, 

Before that they turn'd blue ; 
But now they're dull with weeping, 

And a', my love, for you. 

" My person it was comely. 

My shape, they said, was neat ; 
But now I am quite chang'd, 

My stays they winna meet : 
A' night I sltieped soundly, 

I\Iy mind was never sad ; 
But udw my rest is broken, 

Wi' thinking o' my lad, 

" O could I live in darkness, 
Or hide uje in the sea. 



Since my love is unfaithftd, 

And has forsaken me ! 
No other love I suffer'd 

Within my breast to dwell ; 
In nought I have offended, 

But loving liim too well." 

Her lover heard her mourning. 

As by he chanc'd to pass. 
And press'd unto his bosom 

The lovely brucket lass : 
" IMy dear," he said, " cease grieving. 

Since that your love's sae true, 
My bonnie brucket lassie 

I'll faithful prove to you." 



SAE MERRY AS WE TWA HA'E BEEN. 

This song is beautiful. — The chorus in par- 
ticular is truly pathetic. — I never could learn 
any thing of its author. 

A LASS that was laden with care 
Sat heavily under yon thorn ; 
I listen'd awhile for to hear, 

When thus she began for to mourn : 
Whene'er my dear shepherd was there, 

The birds did melodiously sing. 
And cold nipping winter did wear 
A face that resembled the spring. 
Sac merry as we twa hae been, 
Sae merry as we tiva hae been. 
My heart it is lihe for to breaks 
When I think on the days we hae seen. 

Our flocks feeding close by his side. 

He gently pressing my hand, 
I view'd the wide world in its pride, 

And laugh'd at the pomp of command ! 
I\Iy dear, he would oft to me say, 

What makes you hard-hearted to me ? 
Oh ! why <lo you thus tiirn away 

From him who is dying for thee? 
Sae merry, ^c. 

But now he is far from my sight. 

Perhaps a deceiver may prove, 
Which makes me lament day and night, 

That ever I granted my love. 
At eve, when the rest of the folk 

Were merrily seated to spin, 
I set myself under an oak. 

And heavily sighed for him. 
Sae merry, Sfc. 



* Balloon Tytler, is here referred lo. 



THE BUSH ABOON TRAQUAIR. 

This is another beautiful song of Mr. Craw- 
ford's composition. In the neighbourhood of 
Traquair, tradition still shews the old " Bush ;" 
which, when I saw it in the year 1787, was 



SONGS. 



117 



composed of eight or nine ragged birches. 
Earl of Traqiiair has planted a chimp of 
near by, which he calls " The New Bush. 

Hear me, ye nymphs, and every swain, 

I'll tell how Peggy grieves me ; 
Tho' thus I languish and complain, 

Alas ! she ne'er believes me. 
My vows and sighs, like silent air, 

Unheeded never move her ; 
The bonnie bush aboon Traquair, 

Was where I first did love her. 

That day she smil'd and made me glad, 

No maid seem'd ever kinder ; 
I thought myself the luckiest lad, 

So sweetly there to find lier. 
I try'd to sooth my am'rous flame, 

In words that I thought tender ; 
If more there pass'd, I'm not to bjame, 

I meant not to oft'end her. 

Yet now she scornful flees the plain. 

The fields we then frequented ; 
If e'er we meet, she shews disdain, 

She looks as ne'er acquainted. 
The bonnie bush bloom'd fair in May, 

Its sweets I'll ay remember ; 
But now her frowns make it decay, 

It fades as in December. 

Ye rural pow'rs, who hear my strains. 

Why thus should Peggy grieve me ? 
Oh ! make her partner in my pains. 

Then let her smiles reheve me : 
If not, my love will turn despair. 

My passion no more tender ; 
I'll leave the bush aboon Traquair, 

To lonely wilds I'll wander. 



The 
trees 



CROMLET'S LILT. 

" In the latter end of the 16th century, the 
Chisholms were proprietors of the estate of 
Cromlecks (now possessed by the Drumnionds). 
The eldest son of that family was very much 
attached to a daughter of Sterling of Ardoeh, 
commonly known by the name of Fair Helen 
of Ardoch. 

" At that time the opportunities of meeting 
betwixt the sexes were more rare, consequently 
more sought after than now ; and the Scottish i 
ladies, far from priding themselves on extensive 
literature, were thought sufficiently book-learn- 
ed if they could make out the Scriptures In their 
mother tongue. Writing was entirely out of 
the line of female education : At that period 
the most of our young men of family sought a 
fortune, or found a grave. In France. Crom- 
lus, when lie went abroad to the war, was o- 
bliged to leave the management of his corres- 
pondence with his mistress to » lay brother of 



the monastery of Dumblain, in the Immediate 
neighbourhood of Croraleck, and near Ardoch. 
This man, unfortunately, was deeply si^nsible of 
Helen's charms. He artfully prepossessed her 
with stories to the disadvantage of Cromlus ; 
and by misinterpreting or keeping up the let- 
ters and messages intrusted to his care, he en- 
tirely irritated both. All connection was broken 
off" betwixt them : Helen was inconsolable, and 
Crondus has left behind him. In the ballad call- 
ed ('romlet's Lilt, a proof of the elegance of his 
genius, as well as the steadiness of his love. 

" When the artful monk thought time had 
sufficiently softened Helen's sorrow, he proposed 
himself as a lover : Helen was obdurate : but 
at last, overcome by the persuasions of her 
brother with whom she lived, and who, having 
a family of thirty-one children, was probably 
very well pleased to get her oft" his hands, she 
submitted, rather than consented to the cere- 
mony ; but there her compliance ended ; and, 
when forcibly put into bed, she started (put*? 
frantic from it, screaming out, that after three 
gentle taps on the wainscoat, at the bed head, 
she heard Cromlus's voice, crying, Helen, He- 
len, mind vie.* Cromlus soon after coming 
home, the treachery of the confidant was dis- 
covered, — her marriage disannulled, — and He- 
len became lady Cromlecks." 

N. B. INIarg. Murray, mother to these thirty- 
one children, was daughter to Murray of Strewn, 
one of the seventeen sons of Tullybardlne, and 
whose youngest son, commonly called the Tutor 
of Ardoch, died in the year 1715, aged 11! 
years. 

Since all thy vows, false maid, 
Are blown to air. 

And my poor heart betray'd 

To sad despair. 

Into some wilderness, 

JMy grief I will express. 

And thy hard- hearted ness, 
O cruel fair. 

Have I not graven our loves 

On every tree 
In yonder spreading groves, 

Tho' false thou be : 
Was not a solemn oath 
Plighted betwixt us both, 
Thou thy faith, I my troth, 

Constant to be ? 

Some gloomy place I'll find. 

Some doleful shade. 

Where neither sun nor wind 

E'er entrance had ; 

Into that hollow cave, 

There will 1 sigh and rave, 

Because thou dost behave 

So faithlessly. 



Ucmcmljer mc. 



118 



BURNS* WORKS. 



Wild fruit shall he my meat, 

I'll drink the spring, 

Cold earth shall he my seat : 
For covering 

I'll have the starry sky 

My head to canopy, 

Until my soul on hy 

Shall spread its wing. 

I'll have no funeral fire, 

Nor tears for me ; 

No grave do I desire, 

Nor obsequies ; 

The courteous lied-breast he 

With leaves will cover me, 

And sing my elegy 

With doleful voice. 

And when a ghost I am, 

I'll visit thee, 

O thou deceitful dame. 

Whose cruelty 

Has kill'd the kindest heart 

That e'er felt Cupid's dart. 

And never can desert 

From loving thee. 



MY DEARIE, IF THOU DIE. 

Another beautiful song of Crawford's. 

Love never more shall give me pain, 

My fancy's fix'd on thee. 
Nor ever maid my heart shall gain, 

My Peggy, if thou die. 
Thy beauty doth such pleasure give, 

Thy love's so true to me. 
Without thee I cau never live, 

My dearie, if thou die. 

If fate shall tear thee from my breast, 

How shall I lonely stray ! 
In dreary dreams the night I'll waste. 

In sighs, the silent day. 
1 ne'er can so much virtue find, 

Nor such perfection see ; 
Then I'll renounce all woman kind, 

My Peggy, after thee. 

No new-blown beauty fires my heart, 

With Cupid's raving rage ; 
But thine, which can such sweets Impart, 

Must all the world engage. 
'Twas this, that like the morning sun. 

Gave joy and life to me ; 
' And when its destin'd day is done. 

With Peggy let me die. 

Ye powers that smile on virtuous love, 

And in such pleasure share ; 
You who its faithful flames approve, 

With pity view the fair ; 



Restore my Peggy's wonted charms, 
Those charms so dear to rao ! 

Oh ! never rob them from these arms ; 
I'm lost if Peggy die. 



SHE ROSE AND LET ME IN. 

The old set of this song, wliich is still to be 
found in printed collections, is much prettier 
than this : but somebody, I believe it was Ram- 
say, took it into his head to clear it of some 
seeming indelicacies, and made it at once more 
chaste and more dull. 

The night her silent sable wore, 

And gloomy were the skies ; 
Of glitt'ring stars appear'd no more 

Than tliose in Nelly's eyes. 
When at her father's yate I knock'd, 

Where I had often been. 
She, shrouded only with her smock, 

Arose and loot me in. 

Fast lock'd within her close embrace, 

She trembling stood asham'd ; 
Her swelling breast, and glowing face. 

And ev'ry touch inflam'd. 
My eager passion I obey'd, 

Resolv'd the fort to win ; 
And her fond heart was soon betray 'd 

To yield and let me in. 

Then, then, beyond expressing, 

Transporting was the joy ; 
I knew no greater blessing. 

So bless'd a man was I. 
And she, all ravish'd with delight, 

Bid me oft come again ; 
And kindly vow'd, that ev'ry night 

She'd rise and let me in. 

But ah I at last she prov'd with bairn, 

And sighing sat and dull. 
And I that was as much concern'd, 

Look'd e'en just like a fool. 
Her lovely eyes with tears ran o'er. 

Repenting her rash sin : 
She sigh'd, and curs'd the fatal hour 

That e'er she loot me in. 

But who cou'd cruelly deceive, 

Or from such beauty part ? 
I lov'd her so, I could not leave 

The charmer of my heart ; 
But wedded, and conceal'd our crime ; 

Thus all was well again. 
And now she thanks the happy time 

That e'er she loot me in. 



SONGS. 



119 



GO TO THE EWE-BUGHTS, MARION. 

I AM not sure if this old and charming air be 
of the South, as is commouly said, or of the 
North of Scotland. — There is a song apparently 
as ancient as Ewe-Bughts, Marion, which 
sings to the same tune, and is evidently of the 
North It begins thus : — 

The Lord o' Gordon had three dochters, 

IMary, INIarget, and Jean, 
They wad na stay at bonnie Castle Gordon, 

But awa to Aberdeen. 



Will ye go to the ewe-bughts, Marion, 

And wear in the sheep wi' me ; 
The sun shines sweet, my Marion, 

But nae half sae sweet as thee. 
O Marion's a bonny lass, 

And the biyth blinks in her e'e ; 
And fain wad I many Clarion, 

Gin Marion wad marry me. 

There's gowd in your garters, Marion, 

And silk on your white hause-bane ; 
Fu' fain wad I kiss my Marion, 

At e'en when I come hame. 
There's braw lads in Earnslaw, Clarion, 

Wha gape, and glower with their e'e. 
At kirk when they see my Maiion ; 

But nane of them lo'es like me. 

I've nine milk-ewes, my INIarion, 

A cow and a brawny quey, 
I'll gie them a' to my JNIarion, 

Just on her bridal-day : 
And ye's get a gi'een sey apron, 

And waistcoat of the London brown, 
And wow ! but ye will be vap'ring. 

Whene'er ye gang to the town. 

I'm young and stout, my ]\Iarion ; 

Nane dance like me on the green ; 
And gin ye forsake me, Marion, 

I'll e'en draw up wi' Jean : 
Sae put on your pearlins, Marion, 

And kyrtle of the cramasie ; 
And soon as my chin has nae hair on, 

I shall come west, and see ye.* 



have one of the earliest copies of the song, and 
it has prefixed, 

Tune of Tarry Woo.—- . 

Of which tunc, a different set has insensibly 
varied into a different air. — To a Scots critic, 
the pathos of the line, 

" Tho' his back be at the wa'," 

— must be very striking. — It needs not a Jaco*- 
bite prejudice to be affected with this song. The 
supposed author of " Lewis Gordon" was a Mr. 
Geddes, priest, at Shenval, in the Ainzie. 

Oh ! send Lewie Gordon hame, 

And the lad I winna name ; 

Tho' his back be at the wa', 

Here's to him that's far awa ! 

Oh hon ! my Highland man, 
Oh, my honny Highland inan ; 
Wcel would I my true-love ken, 
Amang ten thousand Highland men. 

Oh ! to see his tartan-trews. 
Bonnet blue, and laigh-heel'd shoes ; 
I*hilabeg aboon his knee ; 
That's the lad that I'll gang wi' ! 
Oh hon, 8fc. 

The princely youth that I do mean, 
Is fitted for to be a king : 
On his breast he wears a star ; 
You'd tak him for the God of War 
Oh hon, 8fC. 

Oh to see this Princely One, 
Seated on a royal throne ! 
Disasters a* would disappear, 
Then begins the Jub'lee year ! 

Oh hon, 8fc. 



LEWIS GORDON.! 

This air is a proof how one of our Scots 
tunes comes to be composed out of another. I 



* This is marked in the Tm TaNe Miscellany as an 
old song with additions. — Kd. 

t " Lord Lewis Cordon, younger brother to the 
then Duke of Gordon, eoinuianded a detachment tor 
the Ciievalier, and accjuilled liiniacU" with jjrcat gal- 
lantry aud judguicut. lie died in 17>>i<" 



OH ONO CHRIO. 

Dr. Blacklock informed me that this song 
was composed on the infamous massacre of 
Glencoe. 

Oh ! was not I a weary wight ! 

Oh !■ ono chri, oh ! ono chri — 
Maid, wife, and widow, in one night ! 
When in my soft and yielding arms, 
O ! when most I thought him free from harms. 
Even at the dead time of the night. 
They broke my bower, and slew my knight. 
With ae lock of his jet-black hair, 
I'll tic my heart for cvermair ; 
Nae sly-tongued youth, or flatt'rmg swain, 
Shall e'er untye this knot again ; 
Thine still, dear youth, that heart sliall be. 
Nor pant tor aught, save heaven and thee. 
(The chorus repeated at the cud of each line). 



120 



BURNS' WORKS. 



THE BEDS OF SWEET ROSES. 

This song, as far as 1 know, for the first 
time appears here in print. — When I was a boy 
it was a very popular song in Ayrshire. I re- 
member to have heard those fanatics, the Buch- 
anites, sing some of their nonsensical rhymes, 
which they dignify with the name of hymns, to 
this air. — Burns. 

As I was a walking 

One morning in May, 
The small birds sang sweetly. 

The flowers were bloomin' gay. 
Oh there I met my true love. 

As fresh as dawnin' day, 
Down among the beds of sweet roses. 

Fu' white was her barefoot, 

New bathed in the dew ; 
Whiter was her white hand. 

Her een were bonnie blue ; 
And kind were her whispers. 

And sweet was her moo, 
Down among the beds o' sweet roses. 

My father and my mother, 

I wot they told me true. 
That I liked ill to thrash. 

And I like worse to plough ; 
But I vow the maidens like me. 

For I kend the way to woo, 
Down among the beds of sweet roses. 



CORN RIGS ARE BONNY. 

My Patie is a lover gay. 

His mind is never muddy, 
His breath is sweeter than new hay, 

His face is fair and ruddy. 
His shape is handsome, middle size ; 

He's stately in his wawking ; 
The shining of his een surprise ; 

'Tis heaven to hear him tawking. 

Last night I met him on a hawk, 

WTiere yellow corn was gi-owing. 
There mony a kindly word he spake, 

That set my heart a-glowing. 
He kiss'd, and vow'd he wad be miue, 

And loo'd me best of ony ; 
That gars me like to sing sinsyne, 

O corn rigs are honny. 

Let maidens of a silly mind 

Refuse what maist they're wanting, 
Since we for yielding are design'd, 

We chastely should be granting ; 
Then I'll comply and marry Pate, 

And syne my cockernony 
He's free to touzle air or late, 

Where corn rigs are bonny. 



All the old words that ever I could meet with 
to this air were the following, which seem to 
have been an old chorus. 

O corn rigs and rye rigs, 

O corn rigs are bonnie ; 
And where'er you meet a bonnie lass, 

Preen up her cockernony. 



WAUKIN O' THE FAULD. 

There are two stanzas still sung to this tune, 
which I take to be the original song whence 
Ramsay composed his beautiful song of that 
u;\me in the Gentle Shepherd. — It begins, 

will ye speak at our town, 

As ye come frae the fauld, &c. 

I regret that, as in many of our old songs, the 
delicacy of this old fragment is not equal to its 
wit and humour. 

My Peggy is a young tiling. 
Just enter'd in her teens. 
Fair as the day, and sweet as May, 
Fair as the day, and always gay. 
JNIy Peggy is a young thing, 

And I'm not very auld. 
Yet well I like to meet her at 
The wanking of the fauld. 

My Peggy speaks sae sweetly, 
Whene'er we meet alane, 

1 wish nae mair to lay my caie, 
I wish nae mair of a' that's rare, 

INIy Peggy speaks sae sweetly. 
To a' the lave I'm cauld ; 

But she gars a' my spirits glow. 
At wauking of the fauld. 

My Pt'ggy smiles sae kindly. 
Whene'er I whisper love. 
That I look down on a' the town. 
That I look down upon a crown, 
IMy Peggy smiles sae kindly. 

It makes me blythe and bauld. 
And naething gi'es me sic delight. 
As wauking of the fauld. 

]My Peggy sings sae saftly. 

When on my pipe I play ; 
By a' the rest it is confest. 
By a* the rest, that she sings best. 
My Peggy sings sae saftly, 

Aud in her sangs are tald. 
With innocence, the wale of sense, 
At wauking of the fauld. 



SONGS. 



121 



MAGGIE LAUDER. 

This old song, so preguiuit with Scottish 
naiviete and energy, is much relished by all 
ranks, notwithstanding its broad wit and pal- 
pable allusions. — Its language is a precious mo- 
del of imitation : sly, sprightly, and forcibly ex- 
pressive Maggie's tongue wags out the nick- 
names of Rob the Piper with all the careless 
lightsomeness of unrestrained gaiety. 

Wha wad na be in love 

W'i' bonny ISIaggie Lauder ? 

A piper met her gaun to Fife, 

And speir'd wliat was't they ca'd her ; — 

Right scornfully she answer'd him, 

Begone, you hallanshaker ! 

Jog on your gate, you bludderskate, 

I\Iy name is Maggie Lauder. 

Maggie, quo' he, and by ray bags, 
I'm iidgin' fain to see thee ; 
Sit down by me, my bonny bird,. 
In troth I winna steer thee : 
For I'm a piper to my trade, 
My name is Rob the Ranter ; 
The lasses loup as they were daft. 
When I blaw up my chanter. 

Piper, quo' Meg, hae ye your bags ? 

Or is your drone in order ? 

If ye be Rob, I've heard o' you, 

Live you upo' the border ? 

The lasses a', baith far and near, 

Have heard o' Rob the Ranter ; 

I'll shake my foot wi' right gude wiill, 

Gif you'll blaw up your chanter. 

Then to his bags he flew wi' speed, 

About the drone he twisted ; 

Meg up and wallop'd o'er the green, 

For brawly could she frisk it. 

Weel done ! quo' he — play up ! quo' she ; 

Weel bobb'd ! quo' Rob the Ranter ; 

'Tis worth my while to play indeed. 

When I hae sic a dancer. 

Weel hae ye play'd your part, quo' Meg, 
Your cheeks are like the crimson ; 
There's nane in Scotland plays sae weel. 
Since we lost Habbie Simpson. 
I've liv'd in Fife, baith maid and witc, 
These ten years and a quarter ; 
Gin' ye should come to Eustcr Fair, 
Speir ye for Maggie Lauder. 



TRANENT MUIR. 



Tune—" KiUicrankie." 



" Tranent-Muir" was composed by a I\Ir. 
Skirvin, a very worthy respectable farmer, nrar 
Haddington. 1 have heard the axiecdote often. 



that Lieutenant Smith, whom he mentions in 
the ninth stanza, came to Haddington after the 
publication of the song, and sent a challenge to 
Skirvin to meet him at Haddington, and an- 
swer for the unworthy manner in which he had 
noticed him in his song. " Gang awa back," 
said the honest farmer, " and tell Mr. Smith 
that I hae na leisure to come to Haddington ; 
but tell him to come here ; and I'll tak a look 
o' liim ; and if I think I'm fit to fecht him, I'll 
fecht him ; and if no — I'll do as he did, — I'll 



rin aica. 



The Chevalier, being void of fear, 

Did march up Birsle brae, man. 
And thro' Tranent, e'er he did stent. 

As fast as he could gae, man : 
While General Cope did taunt and mock, 

Wi' mony a loud huzza, man ; 
But e'er next morn proclaim'd the cock, 

We heard another craw, man. 



The brave Lochiel, as I heard tell, 

Led Caraerons on in clouds, man ; 
The morning fair, and clear the air. 

They loos'd with devilish thuds, man : 
Down guns they threw, and swords they drew, 

And soon diil chace them aff, man ; 
On Seaton-Crafts they buft their chafts, 

And gart them rin like daft, man. 

The bluflf dragoons swore blood and 'oons. 

They'd make the rebels run, man ; 
And yet they flee when them they see. 

And winna fire a gun, man : 
They turn'd their back, the foot they brake. 

Such terror seiz'd them a', man ; 
Some wet their cheeks, some fyl'd their breeks, 

And some for fear did fa', man. 

The volunteers prick'd up their ears, 

And vow gin they were crouse, man ^ 
But when the bairns saw't turn to earn'st, 

They were not worth a louse, man ; 
INIaist feck gade hame ; O fy for shame ! 

They'd better stay'd awa', man. 
Than wi' cockade to make parade, 

And do nae good at a', man. 

Menteith the great,* when hersell sh — t, 

Un'wares did ding him o'er, man j 
Yet wad nae stand to bear a hand, 

But aft' fou fast did scour, man ; 
O'er Soutra hill, e'er he stood still, 

Before he tasted meat, man : 
Troth he may brag of his swift nag, 

That bare him aflf sac fleet, man. 



* Tho minister of LoiififonTiacus, a volunteer ; who, 
happeiiinjT to come; the night before tlie batllo, upon a 
Highland gelding, easing nature at I'rcstoii, threw liim 
over, and carried his gun as a trophy to Cope's camp, 

36 



122 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And Simpson • keen, to dear the eeu 

Of rebels far in wrang, man, 
Did never strive wi' pistols five, 

But g;dlop'd with the thrang, man : 
He turn'd his back, and in a crack 

Was cleanly out of sight, man ; 
And thought it best ; it was nae jest 

Wi' Highlanders to fight, man. 

'Mangst a' the gang nane bade the bang 

But twa, and ane was tane, man ; 
For Campbell rade, but Myrief staid, 

And sair he paid the kain,]: man ; 
Fell skelps he got, was war than shot 

Frae the sharp-edg'd claymore, man ; 
Frae many a spout came running out 

His reeking-het red gore, man. 

But Gard'ner ]f brave did still behave 

Like to a hero bright, man ; 
His courage true, like him were kvr, 

That still despised flight, man ; 
For kiug and laws, and country's cause, 

In honour's bed he lay, man ; 
His life, but not his courage, fled, 

While be had breath to draw, man. 

And Major Bowie, that worthy soul, 

Was brought down to the ground, man 
His horse being shot, it was his lot 

For to get mony a wound, man : 
Lieutenant Smith, of Irish birth, 

Frae whom he call'd for aid, man. 
Being full of dread, lap o'er his head, 

And wadna be gainsaid, man. 

He made sic haste, sae spur'd his beast, 

'Twas little there he saw, man ; 
To Berwick rade, and safely said. 

The Scots wez'e rebels a', man ; 
But let that end, for well 'tis kend 

His use and wont to lie, man ; 
The Teague is naught, he never faugh t, 

When he had room to flee, man. 



* Another volunteer Presbyterian minister, who 
said he would convince the rebels of their error by the 
dint of his pistols; having, for tliat purpose, two in 
his pockets, two in his holsters, and one in his belt. 

t Mr. Myrie was a student of physic, from Jamaica ; 
he entered as a volunteer in Cope's army, and was 
miserably mangled by the broadsword. 

t *• e. He suffered severely in the cause. 

II James Gardiner, Colonel of a regiment of horse. 
This gentleman's conduct, however celebrated, does 
not seem to have proceeded so much from the gene- 
rous ardour of a noble and heroic mind, as from a 
spirit of religious enthusiasm, and a bigoted reli;iiice 
on the Presbyterian doctrine of predestination, which 
rendered it a matter of perfect inditterenee whether he 
left the field or remained in it. Being deserted by his 
troop, he was killed by a Highlander, with a Lochaber 
axe. 

Colonel Gardiner having, when a gay young man, 
at Paris, made an assignation with a lady, was, as he 
pretended, not only deterred from keeping his ap- 
pointment, but thorouglily reclaimed from all such 
thoughts in future, by an apparition. See his Life by 
Doddridge. 



And Caddell drest, amang the rest. 

With gun and good claymore, man, 
On gelding grey he rode that way, 

With pistols set before, man ; 
The cause was good, he'd spend his blood, 

Before that he would yield, man ; 
But the night before he left the cor, 

And never fac'd the field, man. 

But gallant Roger, like a soger, 

Stood and bravely fought, man ; 
I'm wae to tell, at last he fell, 

But mae down wi' him brought, man ; 
At point of death, wi' his last breath, 

(Some standing round in ring, man), 
Ou's back lying flat, he wav'd his hat. 

And cry'd, God save the king, man. 

Some Highland rogues, like hungry dogs, 

Neglecting to pursue, man, 
About they fac'd, and in great haste 

Upon the booty flew, man ; 
And they, as gain, for all their pain. 

Are deck'd wi spoils of war, man ; 
Fow bald can tell how her nainsell 

Was ne'er sae pra before, man. 

At the thorn-tree, which you may see 

Bewest the meadow-mill, man ; 
There mony slain lay on the plain, 

The clans pursuing still, man. 
Sic unco' hacks, and deadly whacks, 

I never saw the like, man ; 
Lost hands and heads cost them their deads, 

That tell near Preston-dyke, man. 

That afternoon, when a' was done, 

I gaed to see the fray, man ; 
But hai I wist what after past, 

I'd better staid away, man : 
On Seaton sands, wi' nimble hands. 

They pick'd my pockets bare, man ; 
But I wish ne'er to drie sic fear. 

For a' the sum and mair, man. 



STREPHON AND LYDIA. 

Tune—" The Gordon's had the Guiding o't." 

The following account of this song I had 
from Dr. Blacklock. 

The Strephon and Lydia mentioned in the 
song were perhaps the loveliest couple of their 
time. The gentleman was commonly known 
by the name of Beau Gibson. The lady was 
the Gentle Jean, celebrated somewhere in Mi. 
Hamilton of Bangour's poems. — Having fre- 
quently met at public places, they had formed 
a reciprocal attachment, which their friends 
thought dangerous, as their resources were by 
no means adequate to their tastes and habits of 
life. To elude the bad consequences of such a 
connection, Strephon was seat abroad with a 



SONGS. 



123 



commissiou, and perishoii in Admiral N'crnou's 
expedition to Carthagena. 

The autlior of tho song was William Wallace, 
Esq. of Cairuhill, in Ayrshire — Burns. 

All lovely on the sultry beach, 

Expiring Strephon lay, 
No hand the cordial draught to reach, 

Nor chear the gloomy way. 
Ill-fated youth ! no parent nigh, 

To catch thy fleeting breath. 
No bride, to fix thy swimming eye, 

Or smooth the face of death. 

Far distant from the mournful scene, 

Thy parents sit at ease. 
Thy Lydia rifles all the plain, 

And all the spring to please. 
Ill-fated youth ! by fault of fi-iend, 

Not force of foe depress'd. 
Thou fall'st, alas ! thyself; thy kind, 

Thy country, unredress'd ! 



I'M O'ER YOUNG TO MARRY YET. 

The chorus of this song is old. — The rest of 
it, such as it is, is mine — Burns. 

I'm o'er young, I'm o'er young, 
I'm o'er young to marry yet ; 
I'm o'er young, 'twad be a sin. 
To take me frae my mammy yet. 

There is a stray, characteristic verse, which 
ought to be restored. 

My minnie coft me a new gown, 
The kirk maun hae the gracing o't ; 

Ware I to lie wi' you, kind Sir, 
I'm feared ye'd spoil the lacing o't. 
/'m o\r young., Ssc. 



MY JO, JANET, 

Johnson, the publisher, with a foolish deli- 
cacy, refused to insert the last stanza of thi:s 
humorous ballad. — Burns. 

Sweet Sir, for your courtesie, 

When ye come by the Bass then, 
For the luve ye bear to me. 

Buy me a keeking-glass, then.— . 
Keek into the drazv-well, 

Janet, Janet; 
A.nd there yell see your bonny sell, 
My Jo, Janet. 

Keeking in the draw-well clear, 
What if I should fa' in, 



Syne a' my kin will say and swear, 

I drown'd mysell for sin. — 
Hand the better be the brae, 

Janet, Janet, 
Haud the better be the brae, 

My Jo, Janet. 

Good Sir, for your courtesie, 

Coming through Aberdeen, then, 
For the luve ye bear to me. 

Buy me a pair of sheen, then. — 
Clout the auld, the new are dear, 

Janet, Janet ; 
Ae pair may gain ye hvHf a year. 
My Jo, Janet. 

But what if dancing on the green, 

And skipping like a maukin, 
If they should see my clouted shoon, 

Of me they will be taukin'. — 
Dance ay laigh, and late at een, 

Janet, Janet ; 
Syne a' their fants will no be seen. 
My Jo, Janet. 

Kind Sir, for your courtesie, 

When yc gae to the Cross, then, 
For the luve ye bear to me, 

Buy me a pacing-horse, then. — 

Pace upo* your spinning-wheel, 

Janet, Janet ; 

Pace upd' your spinning-ivheel. 

My Jo, Janet. 

My spinning-wheel is auld and stiff, 

The rock o't winna stand, Sir, 
To keep the temper-pin in tiff". 

Employs right aft my hand, Sir.- 
Mak the best o't that ye can, 

Janet, Janet ; 
Sut like it never wale a man. 

My Jo, Janet. 



GUDE YILL COMES, AND GUDE 
YILL GOES. 

This song sings to the tune called The bot^ 
torn of the puyich bowl, of which a very good 
copy may be found in M^ Gibbons Collection.-^ 
Burns. 

Tune—*' The Happy Farmer." 

O gude yill comes, and gude yill goes^ 
Glide yill gars me sell my hose. 
Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon. 
For gude yill keeps my heart aboon. 

I had sax owsen in a pleugh. 
And they drew teugh and weel eneugh ; 
I drank them a' ane by ane. 
For gude yill keeps my heart aboon. 
Gude yill, Sj-c. 

1 had forty shillin in a clout, 
Gude yill gart me pyke them out ; 



124. 



BURNS' WORKS. 



That gear should inoule I thought a sin, 
Gude yill keeps my heart aboon. 
Gude yill, Sfc. 

The meikle pot upon my back, 
Unto the yill-house I did pack ; 
It melted a' w'l the heat o' the moon, 
Gude yill keeps my heart aboon. 
Gude yill, §-c. 

Gude yill bauds me bare and busy, 
Gars me moop wi' the servant hizzie. 
Stand in the kirk when I hae done, 
Gude yill keeps my heart aboon.* 
Gude yill, §'c. 

I wish their fa' may be a gallows, 
Winna gie gude yill to gude fellows. 
And keep a soup 'till the afternoon, 
Gude yill keeps my heart aboon. 

O gude yill comes, and gude yill goes, 
Gude yill gars me sell my hose. 
Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon, 
Gude yill keeps my heart aboon. 



WERE NA MY HEART LIGHT I WAD 
DIE. 

Lord Hailes, in the notes to his collection of 
ancient Scots poems, says that this song was the 
composition of a Lady Grissel BailUe, daughter 
of the first Earl of Marchmont, and wife of 
George Baillie, of Jerviswood. — Burns. 

There was anes a May, and she loo'd na men, 
She biggit her bonny bow'r down in yon glen ; 
But now she cries dool ! and a well-a-day ! 
Come down the green gate, and come here away. 
Sut noiv she cries, §"c. 

When bonny young Johny came o'er the sea, 
He said he saw naithing sae lovely as me ; 
He hecht me baith rings and mony braw things ; 
And were na my heart light I wad die. 
He hecht me, Sj'c. 

He had a wee titty that loo'd na me, 

Because I was twice as bonny as she ; 

She rais'd such a pother 'twixt him and his mo- 
ther, 

That were na my heart light, I wad die. 
She rais'd, §*c. 

The day it was set, and the bridal to be, 
The wife took a dwam, and lay down to die ; 
She main'd and she grain'd out of dolour and 

pain, 
Till he vow'd he never wad see me again. 

She main'd §'c. 



* Tlic hand of Bums is visible here. The 1st and 
4th verses only are the original ones. 



His kin was for ane of a higher degree, 
Said, What had he to do with the like of me ? 
Albeit I was bonny, I was na for Johny : 
And were na my heart hght, I wad die. 
Albeit I was, 8j-c. 

They said, I had neither cow nor caff, 
Nor dribbles of drink rins throw the draff. 
Nor pickles of meal rins throw the mill-ee ; 
And were na my heart light, I wad die. 
JVor pickles of, ^c. 

His titty she was baith wylie and slee, 
She spy'd me as I came o'er the lee ; 
And then she ran in and made a loud din. 
Believe your aiu een, an ye trow na me. 
A7id then she, Sfc. 

His bonnet stood ay fou round on his brow ; 
His auld ane looks ay as well as some's new : 
But now he lets't wear ouy gate it will hing, 
And casts himself dowie upon the corn-bing. 
JBut 7101V he, §'c. 

And now he gaes ' daudering' about the dykes. 
And a' he dow do is to hund the tykes : 
The live-lang night he ne'er steeks his ee. 
And were na my heart light, I wad die. 
The live-la7ig, §*c. 

Were I young for thee, as I hae been. 
We shou'd hae been galloping down on yon green, 
And linking it on the lily-white lee ; 
And wow gin I were but young for thee ! 
Ayid linking ^c. 



MARY SCOTT, THE FLOWER OF 
YARROW. 

Mr. Robertson, in his statistical account of 
the parish of Selkirk, says, that Mary Scott, the 
Flower of Yarrow, was descended from the Dry 
hope, and married into the Harden family. Her 
daughter was married to a predecessor of the 
present Sir Francis Elliot of Stobbs, and of the 
late Lord Heathfield. 

There is a circumstance in their contract of 
marriage that merits attention, as it strongly 

marks the predatory spirit of the times The 

father-in-law agrees to keep his daughter, for 
some time after the marriage ; for which the 
son-in-law binds himself to give him the profits 
of the first Michaelmas-moon. — Burns. 

Happy's the love which meets return. 
When in soft flames souls equal burn ; 
But words are wanting to discover 
The torments of a hopeless lover. 
Ye registers of heav'n, relate, 
If looking o'er the rolls of fate, 
Did you there see me mark'd to marrow 
Mary Scott the flower of Yari-ow ? 



SONGS. 



125 



AU no ! her tonn'.s too hcav'uly fair, 
Her love the gods above must share ; 
While mortals with despair explore her, 
And at distance due adore her. 
O lovely niaid ! my doubts beguile, 
Revive and bless me with a smile : 
Alas ! if not, you'll soou debar a 
Sighing swain the banks of Yarrow. 

Be hush, ye fears, I'll not despair ; 
My Mary's tender as she's fair ; 
Then I'll go tell her all mine anguish, 
She is too good to let me languish : 
With success crown'd, I'll not envy 
The folks who dwell above the sky ; 
Wlieu Mary Scott's become my marrow, 
We'll make a paradise in Yarrow. 



THE HIGHLAND QUEEN. 

The Highland Queen, music and poetry, was 
composed by a Mr. INI'Vicai*, purser of the Sol- 
bay man of war. — This I had from Dr. Black- 
lock. — Burns. 

Tune—" The Highland Queen." j 

No more my song shall be, ye swains, 
Of purling streams or flowrie plains ; 
More pleasing beauties now inspire. 
And Phoebus deigns the warbling lyre. 

Divinely aided, thus I mean 
To celebrate, to celebrate, 

To celebrate my Highland Queen. 

In her sweet innocence you'll find 
With freedom, truth and virtue join'd : 
Strict honour fills her spotless soul, 
And gives a lustre to the whole. 

A matchless shape and lovely mein 
All centre in, all centre in, 

AU centre in my Highland Queen. 

No sordid wish or trifling joy 
Her settled calm of mind destroy : 
From pride and affectation free. 
Alike she smiles on you and me. 

The brightest nymph that trips the green 
I do pronounce, I do pronounce, 

I do pronounce my Highland Queen. 

How blest the youth, whose gentle fate 
Has destined to so fair a mate, 
With all those wondrous gifts in store, 
To which each coming day brings more. 

No man more happy can be seen 
Possessing thee, possessing thee. 

Possessing thee, my Highland Queen. 



THE MUCKIN' O' GEORDIE'S BYRE. 

The chorus of this song is old The rest is 

the work of Balloon Tytler.* — Burns. 

Tu,ne—f' The MuckLu' o' Geordic's Byre." 

The muckin' o' Geordie's byre, 

And the shool an' the graip sae clean, 
Has gar'd me weet my cheeks, 
And greet wi' baith my een. 
It was ne'er my father's will, 
Nor yet my mither's desire, 
That e'er I should fyle my Jitigers 
Wi muckin' o' Geordie's byre. 

The mouse is a merry beast, 

The moudiwort wants the een. 
But the \varld shaU ne'er get wit, 
Sae merry as we hae been. 
It was ne'er my father's ivill, 
Nor yet my mithers desire, 
That e'er I should fyle my fingers 
Wi* muckin' u' Geordie's byre. 



MACPHERSON'S FAREWELL ; 

ALSO KNOWN AS 

MACPHERSON'S RANT. 

He was a daring robber in the beginning of 
this (eighteenth) century — was condemned to 
be hanged at Inverness. He is said, when un- 
der sentence of death, to have composed this 
tune, which he called, his own Lament, or Fare- 
well. 

Gow has published a variation of this fine 
tune, as his own composition, which he calls 
" The Princess Augusta." — Burns. 

I've spent my time in rioting, 

Debauch'd my health and strength : 
I've pillaged, plundered, murdered, 

But now, alas ! at length 
I'm brought to punishment direct ; 

Pale death draws near to me ; 
This end I never did project 

To hang upon a tree. 

To hang upon a tree, a tree, 

That cursed unhappy death ; 
Like to a wolf to worried be. 

And choaked in the breath : 
My very heart would surely break 

"Wlien this I think upon, 
Did not my courage singular 

Bid pensive thoughts begone. 



» A singularly Icamcd but unhappy person. He 
lived at too early a stage of the world : before theve 
was toleration in Britain, which he was obliged to (iiiit 
(1703) because of his domocratical writings: when he 
took refuge at Salem as a newspaper editor. He also 
lived before there were Temperance Societies any 
where. 



126 



BURNS' WORKS. 



No man on earth, that diaweth breath, 

More courage had than I : 
I dared my foes unto their face, 

And would not from them fly. 
This grandeur stout, I did keep out, 

Like Hector, manfully : 
Then wonder one like me so stout 

Should hang upon a tree. 

The Egyptian band I did command, 

With courage more by far, 
Than ever did a general 

His soldiers in the war. 
Being feared by all, l)oth great and small, 

I liv'd most joyfullie : 
Oh, curse upon this fate o' mine, 

To hang upon a tree. 

As for my life I do not care, 

If justice would take place, 
And bring my fellow-plunderers 

Unto the same disgrace : 
But Peter Brown, that notour loon, 

Escaped and was made free ; 
Oh, curse upon this fate o' mine, 

To hang upon a tree. 

Both law and justice buried are. 

And fraud and guile succeed ; 
The guilty pass unpunished, 

If money intercede. 
The Laird o' Graunt, that Highland Saunt 

His mighty majestie, 
He pleads the cause of Peter Brown, 

And lets Macpherson die. 

The destiny of my life contrived. 

By those whom I obliged, 
Rewarded me much ill for good, 

And left me no refuge : 
But Braco Duff, in rage enough, 

He first laid hands on me ; 
And if that death would not prevent, 

Avenged would I be. 

As for my life, it is but short, 

When I shall be no more ; 
To part with life, I am content, 

As any heretofore. 
Therefore, good people all, take heed. 

This warning take by me — 
According to the lives you lead, 

Rewarded you shall be.* 



UP IN THE MORNING EARLY. 

The chorus of this is old ; the two stanzas 
are mine. 



* Burns' own set of the Lament, appears liker the 
natural effusions of the high-spirited criminal, than 
this homily. 



Up in the mornhig^s no for me, 

Zip in the. morning early ; 
^Vhen a the hills are covered wV snaw, 

Fm sure it's winter fairly. 

Cold blaws the wind fi-ae east to west, 

The drift is driving sairly ; 
Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast, 

I'm sure it's winter fairly. 

Burns. 



UP IN THE MORNING EARLY 

BY JOHN HAMILTON. 

Cauld blaws the wind frae north to south, 

The drift is driving sairly. 
The sheep ai'e courin' in the bench : 

O, sirs, its winter fairly. 
Now up in the mornin's no for me, 

Up in the mornin' early ; 
I'd rather gae supperless to my bed 

Than rise in the mornin' early. 

Loud roars the blast amang the woods, 

And tirls the branches barely ; 
On hill and house hear how it thuds. 

The frost is nipping sairly. 
Now up in the mornin's no for me, 

Up in the mornin' early; 
To sit a' nicht wad better agree 

Than rise in. the mornin' early. 

The sun peeps ower yon southland hills 

Like ony timorous carlie, 
Just blinks a wee, then sinks again, 

And that we find severely. 
Now up in the mornin's no for me, 

Up in in the mornin' early ; 
When snaw blaws in at the chimly cheek, 

Wha'd rise in the mornin' early. 

Nae linties lilt on hedge or bush ; 

Poor things they suffer sairly. 
In cauldrife quarters a' the night, 

A' day they feed but sparely. 
Now up in the mornin's no for me, 

Up in the mornin' early ; 
A pennyless purse I wad rather dree 

Than rise in the mornin' early. 

A cozie house and canty wife, 

Aye keep a body cheerly ; 
And pantries stou'd wi' meat and drink, 

They answer unco rarely. 
But up in the mornin's no for me, 

Up in the mornin' early ; 
The gowan maun glint on bank and brae, 

When I rise in the mornin' early 



SONGS. 



127 



GALA-WATER. 

1 HAVE heard a concluding verse sung to 
these words — it is, 

An' ay she came at e'enin fa', 

Amang the yellow broom, sae eerie, 

To seek the snood o' silk she tint ; — 

She fan na it, but gat her dearie. — Burns. 

The original song of Gala-water was thus re- 
cited by a resident in that very pastoral district. 

Bonnie lass of Gala- water ; 

Braw, braw lass of Gala-water ! 
I would wade the stream sae deep. 

For yon braw lass of Gala-water. 

Braw, braw lads of Gala-water ; 

O, braw lads of Gala-water ! 
I'll kilt my coat aboon my knee. 

And follow my love thro' the water. 

Sae fair her hair, sae brent her brow, 
Sae bonnie blue her een, my dearie ; 

Sae white her teeth, sae sweet her mou', 
I often kiss her till I'm wearie. 

O'er yon bank, and o'er yon bnae. 
O'er yon moss amang the heather ; 

ril kilt my coat aboon my knee. 

And follow my love thro' the water. 

Down amang the broom, the broom, 
Down amang the broom, my dearie ; 

The lassie lost her silken snood, 

That gart her greet till she was wearie. 



DUMBARTON DRUMS. 

This is the last of the West Highland airs ; 
and from it, over the whole trai;t of country to 
the confines of Tweedside, there is hardly a 
tune or song that one can say has taken its ori- 
gin from any place or transaction in that part of 
Scotland. — The oldest Ayrshire reel, is Stew- 
arton JLasses, which was made by the father of 
the present Sir Walter Montgomery Cunning- 
liam, alias Lord Lyle ; since which period there 
has indeed been local music in that country in 
great plenty. — Jo/mie Faa is the only old song 
which I could ever trace as belonging to the ex- 
tensive county of Ayr. — Burns. 

The poet has fallen under a mistake here : — 
the drums here celebrated were not those of the 
town, or garrison of Dumbarton ; but of the 
regiment commanded by Lord Dumbarton — a 
cavalier of the house of Douglas — who signalized 
himself on the Jacobite side in 16S5. — The old 
song vvas as follows : — 

Dumbarton's drums beat bonuy, O, 
^Tien they mind inc of my dear .Tohnie, O. 



How happy am I, 

When my soldier is by. 
While he kisses and blesses liis Anuit;, O ! 
'Tis a soldier alone can delight me, O, 
For his graceful looks do invite me, O : 

While guarded in his arms, 

I'll fear no war's alarms, 
Neither danger nor death shall e'er fright me, O. 

My love is a handsome laddie, O, 
Genteel, but ne'er foppish nor gaudy, O : 

Tho' commissions are dear, 

Yet I'll buy him one this year ; 
For he shall serve no longer a cadie, O. 
A soldier has honour and bravery, O, 
Unacquainted with rogues and their knavery, O; 

He minds no other thing 

But the ladies or the king ; 
For ev'ry other care is but slavery, O. 

Then I'll be the captain's lady, O ; ■- 
Farewell all my friends and my daddy, O : 

I'll wait no more at home, 

But I'll follow with the drum. 
And whene'er that boats, I'll be ready, O. 
Dumbarton's drums sound bouny, O, 
They are sprightly like my dear Johnie, O ; 

How happy shall I be, 

When on my soldier's knee. 
And he kisses and blesses his Annie, O ! 



FOR LACK OF GOLD. 

The country girls in Ayrshire, instead of the 



line 



say, 



She me forsook for a great duke, 



For Athole's duke she me forsook ; 
which I take to be the original reading. 

These words were composed by the late Dr. 
Austin, physician at Edinburgh.-^He had 
courted a lg.dy,* to whom he was shortly to 
have been married : but the Duke of Atliole 
having seen her, became so much in love with 
her, that he made proposals of marriage, which 

were accepted of, and she jilted the Doctor 

Burns. 

dr. austin. 

Tune—" For Lack of Gold." 

For lack of gold she has left me, O ; 
And of all that's dear she's bereft me, O ; 
She me forsook for Athole's duke, 
And to'jndless wo she has left me, O. 
A star and garter have more art 
Than youth, a true and faitliful heart ; 



* Jean, daughter of John Drummond, of Megg- 
It'll, Esq. 



128 



BURNS' WORKS. 



For empty titles we must j)ait ; 

For glittering <4io\v she lias left me, O. 

No cruel fair shall ever move 
My injur'd heart again to love ; 
Thro' distant climates T must rove, 
Since Jeany she has left me, O. 
Ye powers above, I to your care 
Resign my faithless lovely fair ; 
Your choicest blessings be her share, 
Tho' she has ever left me, O ! 



MILL, MILL O. 

The original, or at least a song evidently 
prior to Ramsay's, is still extant. — It runs thus : 

The mill, mill O, and the Mil, Mil O, 
And the coggin o' Peggifs wheel O, 

The sack and the sieve, and a' she did leave, 
And danc'd the millefs reel O. 

As I cam down yon waterside. 

And by yon shellin-hill O, 
There I spied a bonnie bonnie lass. 

And a lass that I lov'd right weel O. — * 



-Burks. 



MILL, MILL O. 

Beneath a green shade I fand a fair maid 

Was sleeping sound and still-0, 
A' lowing wi' love, ray fancy did rove, 

Around her with good will-O : 
Her bosom I press'd, but, sunk in her rest, 

She stir'd na ray joy to spill-0 ; 
While kindly she slept, close to hei- I crept, 

And kiss'd, and kiss'd her my till-0. 

Oblig'd by command in Flauders to land, 

T' employ my courage and skill- O, 
Frae 'er quietly I staw, huist'd sails and awa. 

For wind blew fair on the hill-0. 
Twa years brought me hame, where loud-frasing 
fame 

Tald uie with a voice right shrill- O, 
My lass, like a fool, had mounted the stool, 

Nor ken'd wha'd done her the ill-O. 

Malr fond of her charms, with my son in her 
arms, 

A ferlying speer'd how she feIl-0 ; 
Wi' the tear in her eye, quoth she, let mc die. 

Sweet Sir, gin I can tell-0. 



* The remaining two stanzas, though in-eify enough, 
partake rather ton miich of (he riifle simplicity of the 
" Olden time" to be admitted heic — Ed. 



Love gae the command, I took her by the hand, 

And bad her a' fears expel-C), 
And nae mair look wan, for I was the man 

Wlia had done her the deed mysell-O. 

My bonnie sweet lass, on the gowany grass, 

Beneath the shilling-hill- O, 
If I did offence, I'se make ye amends, 

Before I leave Peggy's mill-O. 
O ! the mill, mill-d, and the kill, kill-0, 

And the cogging of the wheel-O, 
The sack and the sieve, a' thae yc man leave," ^ 

And round with a soger reel-0. (.<< 



WALY, WALY. 

In the west country 1 have heard a different 
edition of the second stanza. — Instead of the 
four lines, beginning with, " When ajckle^ 
shells,'' Sfc. the other way ran thus : — 

O WHEREFORE need I busk my head, 
Or wherefore need I kame my hair, 

Sin my fause luve has me forsook, 

And says he'll never luve me mair 

Burns. 



WALY waly up the bank, 
And waly waly down the brae, 

And waly waly by yon burn-side, >nl' 

Wliere I and ray love were wont to gaed' 

1 leant ray back unto an aik, 

1 thought it was a trustie trie ; 
But iirst it bow'd, and syne it brake, 
And sae my true love did lyghtlie me. 

O waly v/aly gin love be bonnie 

A little time while it is new ; 
But when its auld it waxetb cauld. 

And fades awa' like morning-dew. 
O wherefore shu'd I busk my head ? 

Or wherefore shu'd I kame my hair ? 
For ray true love has me forsook, 

And says he'll never loe me mair. 

Now Arthur-seat shall be my bed, 

The sheits shall neir be fyl'd by me : 
Saint Anton's well sail be my drink. 

Since my true love has forsaken rae. 
Marti'mas wind, whan wilt thou blaw. 

And shake the green leaves atf the trie ? 
O gentle death, whan wilt thou cum ? 

For of my lite I am wearie. 

'Tis not the frost that freezes fell, 
Nor blawing snaw's inclemencie ; 

'Tis not sic cauld that makes me cry. 

But my love's heart grown cauld to rac. ' 

Whan wo came in by (ilasgowe town, 
We were a comely sight to see ; 



SONGS. 



129 



My love was clad i' th' black velvet, 
And I mysell in cramasie. 

But had I wist before I kisst. 

That love had been sae ill to win, 
I had lockt my heart iu a case of gowd, 

And pinn'd it wi' a siller pin. 
Oh, oh ! if my young babe were borne. 

And set upon the nurse's knee, 
And I mysell were dead and gone, 

For a maid again He never be ! 



TODLEN HAME. 



This is, perhaps, 
ever was composed.- 



the first bottle song 
-Burns. 



that 



When I've a saxpence under my thumb. 

Then I'll get credit in ilka town : 

But ay when I'm poor they bid me gae by ; 

O ! poverty parts good company. 
Todlen hame, todlen hame, 
Coudna my hove come todlen hame 9 

Fair-fa* the goodwife, and send her good sale, 
She gi'es us white bannocks to drink her ale, 
Syne if her tippony chance to be sraa', 
We'll tak a good scour o't, and ca't awa'. 

Todlen hame, todlen hame. 

As round as a neep, come todlen hame. 

My kimmer and I lay down to sleep. 

And twa pintstoups at our bed-feet ; 

And ay when we waken'd, we drank them dry : 

What think ye of my wee kimmer and I ? 

Todlen but, and todlen ben, 

Sae round as my loove comes todlen hame. 

Leeze me on liquor, my todlen dow, 

Ye're ay sae good humour'd when weeting your 

mou; 
When sober sae sour, ye'll fight wi* a flee. 
That 'tis a blyth sight to the bairns and me, 
When todlen hame, todlen hame, 
When round as a neep ye come todleri hame, 



CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN. 

This fong is by the Duke of Gordon. — The 
old verses are. 

There's cauid kail in Aberdeen, 

And castocks in Strabogie ; 
When ilka lad maun hae his lass. 

Then fye, gle me my cogie. 
My cogie. Sirs, my cogie, Sirs, 

I cannot want my cogie : 
I wadna gie my threc-girr''d stoup 

For a' the quenes on Bogie, 



There's Johnie Smith has got a wile 
That scrimps him o* his cogie. 

If she were mine, upon my life 
I'd douk her in a bogie. 

My cogie, Sirs, ^c, — Burns. 



CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN. 

There's cauld kail in Aberdeen, 
And castocks in Stra'bogie ; 
Gin I but hae a bonny lass, 
Ye're welcome to your cogie : 
And ye may sit up a' the night, 
And drink till it be braid day-light ; 
Gie me a lass baith clean and tight. 
To dance the Reel of Bogie. 

In cotillons the French excel ; 

John Bull loves countra-dances ; 

The Spaniards dance fandangos well ; 

Mynheer an allemande prances : 

In foursome reels the Scotch delight. 

The threesome maist dance wond'rous light j 

But twasome's ding a' out o* sight, 

Danc'd to the Reel of Bogie. 

Come, lads, and view your partners well. 
Wale each a blythsome rogie ; 
I'll tak this lassie to mysel. 
She seems sae keen and vogie ! 
Now piper lad bang up the spring ; ' 
The countra fashion is the thing. 
To prie their mou's e'er we begin 
To dance the Reel of Bogie. 

Now ilka lad has got a lass, 
Save yon auld doited fogie ; 
And ta'en a fling upo' the grass. 
As they do in Stra'bogie : 
But a' the lasses look sae fain. 
We canna think oursel's to hain. 
For they maun hae their come again 
To dance the Reel of Bogie. 

Now a* the lads hae done their best. 

Like true men of Stra'bogie ; 

We'll stop awhile and tak a rest. 

And tipple out a cogie : 

Come now, my lads, and tak your glass, 

And try ilk other to surpass. 

In wishing health to every lass 

To dance the Reel of Bogie. 



WE RAN AND THEY RAN. 

The author of We ran and they ran, and 
they ran and we ran, §'c. was the late Rev 
Murdoch M'Leunan, minister at Crathie, Dee* 
side. — Burns, 



37 



130 



BURNS' WORKS. 



There's some say that we wau, 

Some say that they wan, 
Some say that nana wan at a', man ; 

But one thing I'm sure, 

That at Sheriff Muir * 
A battle there was, which I saw, man : 

And we ran, and they ran, and they ran, 
and we ran, and we ran, and they ran awa\ 
man. 

Brave Argyle f and Belhaveu, \ 

Not Hke frighted Leven, § 
Which Rothes || and Haddington ^ sa', man ; 

For they all with Wightman ** 

Advanced on the right, man, 
While others took flight, being ra', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, ^c. 

Lord Roxburgh f f was there> 

In order to share 
With Douglas, \\ who stood not iu awe, man, 

Volunteerly to ramble 

With lord Loudon Campbell, || |( 
Brave Hay §§ did suffer for a', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, S^c 

Sir John Schaw, f f that great knight, 

Wi' broad-sword most bright. 
On horseback he briskly did charge, man ; 

An hero that's bold. 

None could him with-hold, 
He stoutly encouuter'd the targemen. 
And we ran, and they ran, 8fc. 

For the cowardly Whittam, *** 

For fear they should cut him. 
Seeing glittering broad-swords wi' a pa*, mac, 

And that in such thrang. 

Made Baird edicang, -j-f j- 
And from the brave clans ran awa', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, Sfc. 



* The battle of Dumblain or Sheriff-muir was fought 
the 13th of November 1715, between the Earl of Mar, 
for the Chevalier, and the Duke of Arg^'le for the go- 
vernment. Both sides claimed the victory, the left 
wing of either army being routed. The capture of 
Preston, it is very remarkable, happened on the same 
day. 

t John (Campbell) 2d Duke of Argyle, commander- 
in-chief of the government forces; a nobleman of great 
talents and integrity, much respected by all parties ; 
died 1745. 

X John (Hamilton) Lord Belhaven ; served as a vo 
lunteer; and had the command of a troop of horse 
raised by the county of Haddington : perished at sea, 
1721. 

§ David (Lesly) Earl of Leven; for the government. 

II John (Lesly) Earl of Rothes; for the government. 

t Thomas (Hamilton) Earl of Haddington; for the 
govern 111 en t. 

** Major-Oeneral Joseph Wightman. 

tt John (Ker) first Duke of Roxburgh; for the go- 
ment. 

tt Archibald (Douglas) Duke of Douglas. 

till Hugh (Campbell) Earl of Loudon. 

^^ Archibald Earl of Hay, brother to the Duke of 
Argyle. He was dangerously wounded. 

nil An officer in the troop of gentleman volunteers. 

*** Major-general Thomas Whitham. 

ttt i* e. Aid du camp. 



Brave Mar • and Panmme f 

Were firm I am sure, 
The latter was kidnapt awa', man, 

With brisk men about. 

Brave Harry \ retook 
His brother, and laught at them a', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, ^c. 

Grave Marshall [| and Lithgow, § 

And Glengary's \ pith too. 
Assisted by brave Loggie-a-man, ** 

And Gordons the bright 

So boldly did fight. 
The redcoats took flight and awa', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, ^c. 

Strathmore ff and Clanronald |^ j: 
Cry'd still, advance, Donald ! 

Till both these heroes did fa', man ; (| (( 
For there was such hashing. 
And broad-swords a clashing. 

Brave Forfar §§ himself got a cla', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, S^c. 



* John (Ersklne) Earl of Mar, commander-in-chief 
of the Chevalier's army; a nobleman of great spirit, 
honour, and abilities. He died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 
1752. 

t James (Maule) Earl of Panmure ; died at Paris, 
1723. 

4 Honourable Harry Maule, brother to the EarL 
The circumstance here alluded to is thus related in the 
Earl of Mar's printed account of the engagement :— . 
" The prisoners taken by us were very civilly used, 
and none of them stript. Some were allow'd to return 
to Stirling upon their parole, &c. . . The few prison- 
ers taken by the enemy on our left were most of them 
stript and wounded after taken. The Earl of Pan- 
mure being first of the prisoners wounded after taken. 
They having refused his parole, he was left in a vil- 
lage, and by the hasty retreat of the enemy, upon the 
approach oif our anny, was rescu'd by his'brother and 
his servants." 

II George (Keith) Earl Marischall, then a youth at 
college. He died at his government of Neufchatel in 
177L His brother, the celebrated Marshall Keith, was 
with him in this battle. 

§ James (Livingston) Earl of Calendar and Linlith- 
gow: attainted. 

H Alexander M'Donald of Glengary, lairdof a clan; 
a brave and spirited chief : attainted. 

■ ** Thomas Drummond of Logie-Almond ; com- 
manded the two battalions of Drummonds. He was 
wounded. 

tt John (Lyon) Earl of Strathinore; "a man of 
good parts, of a most amiable disposition and charac> 
ter." 

.jnj: Ranald M'Donald, Captain of Clan Ranald. 
A'^. B. The Captain of a clan was one who, being next 
or near in biood to the Chief, headed them in his infan- 
cy or absence. 

II II " We have lost to our regret, the Earl of Strath- 
more and the Captain of Clan Ranald." Earl of Mar's 
Letter to the Governor of Perth. Again, printed ac- 
count : — " We cann't find above CO of our men in all 
kill'd, among whom were the Earl of Strathmore [and] 
the Captain of Clan Ranald, both much lamented." 
The latter, " for his good parts and gentle accomplish- 
ments, was look'd upon as the most gallant and gener- 
ous young gentleman among the clans. ... He was 
lamented by both parties that knew him." 

His servant, who lay on the field watching his dead 
body, being asked next day who that was, answered. 
He was a man yesterday.— .Boiife/rs Journey to the He- 
brides, p. 359. 

^ ^ Archibald (Douglas) Earl of Forfar, who com- 
manded a regiment in the Duke's army. He is said to 
have been shot in the knee, and to have had ten or 
twelve cuts in his head from the broad-swords. He 
died a few days after of his wounds. 



SONGS. 



131 



Lord Perth * stood the storm, 

Seafoith f but lukewarm, 
Kilsyth \ and Strathallan |{ not sla', man ; 

And Hamilton § pled 

The men were not bred, 
For he had no fancy to fa', man. 

And we ran, and they ran, §-c. 

Brave generous Southesk, ^ 

Tilebairn ** was brisk, 
Whose father indeed would not dra', man, 

Into the same yoke, 

"Which serv'd for a cloak. 
To keep the estate 'twixt them twa, man. 
And we ran, and they ran, Sec. 

Lord Rollo ff not fear'd, 

Kintore |:j: and his beard, 
Pitsligo II ll and Ogilvie §§ a', man, 

And brothers Balfours, ^^ 

They stood the first show'rs, 
Clackmannan and Burleigh ♦•* did cla', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, 8fc. 

But Cleppanfff acted pretty, 

And Strowan the witty, ||j: 
A poet that pleases us a', man ; 

For mine is but rhime. 

In respect of what's fine, 
Or what he is able to dra', man. 

And we ran, and they ran, 8fc. 



* James Marquis of Drummond, son of James 
<Drummond) Duke of Perth, was lieutenant-general 
of horse, and " behaved with great gallantry." rie 
was attainted, but escaped to France, where he soon 
after died. 

t William (Mackenzie) Earl of Seaforth. He was 
attainted, and died in 1740. 

ij: William (Livingston) Viscount Kilsyth : attainted. 

II William (Drummond) Viscount Strathallan ; 
whose sense of loyalty could scarcely equal the spirit 
and activity he manifested in the cause. He was ta- 
ken prisoner in this battle, which he survived to per- 
ish in the still more fatal one of Culloden.muir. 

§ Lieutenant-general George Hamilton, command- 
ing under the Earl of Mar. 

^ James (Carnegie) Earl of Southesk ; was attaint- 
ed, and, escaping to France, died there in 1729. 

** William (Niurray) Marquis of TuUibardin, eldest 
son to the Duke of Athole. Having been attainted, 
he was taken at sea in 1746, and dica soon after, of a 
flux, in the Tower. 

tt Robert (Rollo) Lord Rollo; " a man of singular 
merit and great integrity :" died in 1758. 

it William (Keith) Earl of Kintore. 

III! Alexander (Forbes) Lord Pitsligo ; " aman of good 
parts, great honour and spirit, and universally beloved 
and esteemed." He was engaged again in the affair of 
1745, for which he was attainted, and died at an ad- 
vanced age in 1762. 

^ § James Lord Ogilvie, eldest son of David (Ogil- 
vie) Earl of Airly. He was attainted, but afterwards 
pardone<l. His father, 7wi dra'ing into the same yoke, 
^aved the estate. 

UK Some relations it is supposed of the Lord Bur- 
leigh. 

*** Robert (Balfour) Lord Burleigh. He was at- 
tainted, and died in 1757. 

ttt Major William Clephane, adjutant-general to 
the Marquis of Drummond. 

XXX Alexander Robertson of Struan ; who, having 
experienced every vicissitude of life, with a stoical 
finnness, died in peace 1749. He was an excellent 
j[>oet, and has left elegies worthy of TibuUus. 



For Huntley • and Sinclair, f 

They both play'd the tinclair, 
With consciences black like a era', man. 

Some Angus and Fifcmen 

They ran for their life, man, 
And ne'er a Lot's wife there at a', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, S^c, 

Then Laurie the traytor. 

Who betray'd his master. 
His king and his country and a', man, 

Pretending Mar might 

Give order to fight. 
To the right of the army awa', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, 8fc. 

Then Laurie, for fear 

Of what he might hear, 
Took Drummond's best horse and awa', man. 

Instead o' going to Perth, 

He crossed the Firth, 
Alongst Stirling-bridge and awa', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, Sfc. 

To London he press'd, 

And there he address'd. 
That he behav'd best o' them a', man ; 

And there without strife 

Got settled for life. 
An hundred a year to his fa', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, 8fc. 

In Burrowstounness 

He resides wi' disgrace. 
Till his neck stand in need of a dra', man. 

And then in a tether 

He'll swing frae a ladder, 
[And] go afF the stage with a pa', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, Sfc. 

Rob Roy stood watch 

On a hill for to catch 
The booty for ought that I sa', man, 

For he ne'er advanc'd 

From the place he was stanc'd, 
Till nae mair to do there at a', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, SfC. 

So we a' took the flight, 

And Moubray the wright ; 
But Lethara the smith was a bra' man, 

For he took the gout. 

Which truly was wit. 
By judging it time to withdra', man. 
And we ran, and they ran, 8fc, 

And trumpet M'Lean, 
WTiose breeks were not clean. 



* Alexander (Gordon) Marquis of Huntley, eldest 
son to the Duke of Gordon, who, according to the 
usual policy of his country, (of which we here meet 
with several other instances), remained neutral. 

t John Sinclair, Esq. commonly called Master of 
Sinclair, eldest son of Henry Lord Sinclair; was at- 
tainUxi, but afterwards pardoned, axid died in 1730. 
The estate was preserved of course. 



132 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Thro' misfortune he liappen'd to fa', man, 

By saving his neck 

His trumpet did break, 
Came aff without musick at a', man.* 
And we ran, and they ran, 8cc. 

So there such a race was, 

As ne'er in that place was, 
And as httle chase was at a', man ; 

Frae ither they * run' 

Without touk o' drum ; 
They did not make use of a pa', man. 

A.nd we ran, and they ran, arid they ran, 
and we ran, and we ran, and they ran awa% 
man. 



BIDE YE YET. 

There is a beautiful song to this tune, be- 
ginning, 

Alas, my son, you little know— 

which is the composition of a Miss Jenny 
Graham of Dumfries. — Burns. 



Alas ! my son, you little know 
The sorrows that from wedlock flow : 
Farewell to every day of ease, 
When you have gotten a wife to please. 
Sae hide yon yet, and hide you yet, 
Ye little keti wJiafs to hetide you yet 
The half of that will gane you yet, 
If a wayward wife obtain you yet. 

Your experience is but small, 
As yet you've met with little thrall ; 
The black cow on your foot ne'er trod, 
Which gars you sing alang the road. 

Sae hide you yet, ^c. 

Sometimes the rock, sometimes the reel, 
Or some piece of the spinning-wheel, 
She will drive at you wi' good will, 
And then she'll send you to the de'il. 

Sae hide you yet, ^c. 



* The particulars of this anecdote no where appear. 
The hero is supposed to be the same John 31'Lcan, 
trumpet, who was sent from Lord Mar, then at Perth, 
witli a letter to the Duke of Argyle, at Stirling cairip, 
on the 30th of October. Vide Orl^nnal Letters IT^O. 
Two copies, however, printed not long after 1715, 
read, " And trumpet Marine." 

In 17H2 the son of this Trumpeter Marine told the 
Earl of Haddington (then Lord I5inning) that the first 
circuit he ever attended, as one of his Majesty's house- 
hold trumpeters, was the Northern, in the year 1710, a- 
long with old LordMinto. That the reason of liis going 
there was, that the circuit immediately preceding, his 
father liad been so harassed in every town he went 
through, by the people singing his verse, " And trtim- 
pet Marine, ichosc brceks," &c. of this song, that he 
swore he would never go again ; and actually resigned 
his situation in favour of his son. — Campbell's History 
of Poetry in Scotland. 



When I like you was young and free, 
T valued not the proudest she ; 
Like you I vainly boasted then, 
That men alone were born to reign. 

Sae hide you yet, ^c. 

Great Hercules and Sampson too, 
Were stronger men than I or you ; 
Yet they were baffled by their dears, 
And felt the distaff and the sheers. 

Sae hide you yet, 8fc, 

Stout gates of brass, and well-built walls, 
Are proof 'gainst swords and cannon-balls ; 
But nought is found by sea or land, 
That can a wayward wife withstand. 

Sae hide you yet, 8fc. 



BIDE YE YET. 

OLD SET. 

Gin I had a wee house and a canty wee fire, 
A bonny wee wifie to praise and admire, 
A bonny wee yardie aside a wee burn ; 
Fareweel to the bodies that yammer and mourn* 
Sae bide ye yet, and bide ye yet. 
Ye little hen what may betide ye yet. 
Some bonny wee body may be my lot. 
And I'll he canty wV thinking o't. 

When I gang afield, and come home at e'en, 
I'll get my wee wifie fou neat and fou clean ; 
And a bonny wee bairne upon her knee, 
That will cry, papa, or daddy, to me. 

Sae bide ye yet, 8fc. 

And if there happen ever to be 
A diff'rence atween my wee wifie and me. 
In hearty good humour, although she be teaz'd, 
I'll kiss her and clap her until she be pleas'd. 
Sae hide ye yet, Sfc. 



THE ROCK AND THE WEE PICKLE 
TOW. 

BY ALEXANDER ROSS. 

There was an auld wife an' a wee pickle tow. 

An' she wad gae try the spinning o't. 

She louted her down, an' her rock took a low, 

And that was a bad beginning o't : 

She sat an' she grat, an' she flet and she flang. 

An' she threw an' she blew, an' she wi:igrd an* 

wraug, 
An' she choked, an' boaked, an' cry'd like to 

mang, 
Alas ! for the dreary spinning o't. 

I've wanted a sark for these eight years an* teuy 
An' this was to be the beginning o't. 



SONGS. 



13.^ 



But I vow I sliall want it for as lang again, 

Or ever I try the spinning o't ; 

For never since ever they ca'd me as they ca' 

me, 
Did sic a mishap an' misanter befa' me, 
But ye shall hae leave baith to hang me an' 

draw me, 
The neist time I try the spinning o't. 

I hae keeped my house for these three score o' 

years. 
An' ay I kept free o' the spinning o't, 
But how I was sarked foul fa' them that speers, 
For it minds me upo' the beginning o't. 
But our women are now a days grown sae bra'. 
That ilka an maun hae a sark an' some hae twa, 
The warlds were better when ne'er an awa' 
Had a rag but ane at the beginning o't. 

Foul fa* her that ever advis'd me to spin, 
That had been so lang a beginning o't, 
I might well have ended as I did begin, 
Nor have got sick a skair with the spinning o't. 
But they'll say, she's a wyse wife that kens her 

ain weerd, 
I thought on a day, it should never be speer'd. 
How loot ye the low take your rock be the 

beard, 
When ye yeed to try the spinning o't ? 

The spinning, the spinning it gars ray heart sob. 

When I think upo' the beginning o't, 

I thought ere I died to have anes made a web. 

But still I had weers o' the spinning o't. 

But had I nine dathers, as I hae but three, 

The safest and soundest advice I cud gee, 

Is that they frae spinning wad keep tlieir hands 

free, 
For fear of a bad beginning o't. 

Yet in spite of my counsel if they will needs run 
The drearysome risk of the spinning o't, 
Let them seek out a lythe in the heat of the sun, 
And there venture o' the beginning o't ; 
But to do as I did, alas, and awow ! 
To busk up a rock at the check of the low, 
Says, that I had but little wit in my pow, 
And as little ado with the spinning o't. 

But yet after a', there is ae thing that grieves 
I\Ty heart to think o' the beginning o't, 
Had I won the length but of ae pair o' sleeves, 
Then there had been word o' the spinning o't ; 
This I wad ha' washen an' bleech'd like the snaw. 
And o' my twa gardies like moggans wad draw. 
An' then fouk wad say, that auld Girzy was bra', 
An' a' was upon her ain spinning o't. 

But gin I wad shog about till a new spring, 
I should yet hue a bout of the spinning o't, 
A mutchkin of linseed I'd i' the yerd fling. 
For a' the wan chausie beginning o't. 
I'll gar my aiu Tammie gae down to the how, 
An* cut me a rock of a widdershines grow, 



Of good ranty-trce for to carry my tow. 

An' a spindle of the same for the twining o't. 

For now when I mind me, I met Maggy Grim, 
This morning just at the beginning o't, 
She was never ca'd chancy, but canny an' slim. 
An' sae it has fair'd of my s})inning o't : 
But an' my new rock were anes cutted an' dry, 
I'll a' Maggies can an' her cantraps defy, 
An' but onie sussie the spinning I'll try, 
An' ye's a' hear o' the beginning o't. 

Quo' Tibby, her dather, tak tent fat ye say, 
The never a ragg we'll be seeking o't. 
Gin ye anes begin, ye'll tarveal's night an' day, 
Sae it's vain ony mair to be speaking o't. 
Since lambas I'm now gaing thirty an' twa, 
An' never a dud sark had I yet gryt or sma', 
An' what war am I ? I'm as warm an' as bra', 
As thrummy tail'd Meg that's a spinner o't. 

To labor the lint-land, an' then buy the seed, 
An' then to yoke me to the harrowing o't. 
An' syn loll amon't an' pike out ilka weed. 
Like swiue in a sty at the farrowing o't ; 
Syn powiug and ripling an' steeping, an' then 
To gar's gae an' spread it upo' the cauld plain, 
An' then after a' may be labor in vain. 
When the wind and the weet gets the fusion o't. 

But tho' it should anter the weather to byde, 
Wi' beetles we're set to the drubbing o't, 
An' then frae our fingers to gnldge aif the hide. 
With the wearisome wark o' the rubbing o't. 
An' syn ilka tait maun be heckl'd out throw, 
The lint putten ae gate, anither the tow, 
Syn on a rock wi't, an' it taks a low, 
The back o' ray hand to the spinning o't. 

Quo* Jenny, I think 'oman ye're i' the right, 
Set your feet ay a spar to the spinning o't. 
We may tak our advice frae our ain mither's 

fright 
That she gat when she try'd the beginning o't. 
But they'll say that auld fouk are twice bairns 

indeed. 
An' sae she has kythed it, but there's nae need 
To sickan an amsliack that we drive our head, 
As langs we're sae skair'd fra the spinning o't. 

Quo' Nanny the youngest, I've now heard 

you a'. 
An' dowie's your doom o' the spinning o't, 
Gin ye, tan the cows flings, the cog cast awa'. 
Ye may see where ye'll lick up your winning 

'o't. 
But I see that but spinning I'll never be bra', 
But gae by the name of a dilp or a da, 
Sae lack where* ye like I shall anes shak a fa', 
Afore I be dung with the spinning o't. 

For well I can mind me when black Willie Bell 
Had Tibbie there just at the winning o't. 
What blew up the bargain, she kens well hersell, 
Was the want of the knack of tlie spinning o't. 



134 



BURNS' WORKS. 



An' now, poor 'oman, for ought that I ken, 
She may never get sic an offer again. 
But pine away bit an' bit, like Jenkin's hen, 
An' naething to wyte but the spinning o't. 

But were it for naething, but just this alane, 

I shall yet hae about o' the spinning o't, 

They may cast me for ca'ing me black at the 

bean. 
But nae cause I shun'd the beginning o't. 
But, be that as it happens, I care not a strae 
But nane of the lads shall hae it to say. 
When they come till woo, she kens naething 

avae. 
Nor has onie ken o' the spinning o't. 

In the days they ca'd yore, gin auld fouks had 

but won. 
To a surkoat hough side for the winning o't, 
Of coat raips well cut by the cast o' their bun. 
They never sought mair o' the spinning o't. 
A pair of grey hoggers well clinked beuew. 
Of nae other lit but the hue of the ew, 
With a pair of rough ruUions to scuff thro' the 

dew, 
Was the fee they sought at the beginning o't. 

But we maun hae linen, an' that maun hae we, 
An' how get we that, but the spinning o't ? 
How can we hae face for to seek a gryt fee. 
Except we can help at the winning o't ? 
An' we maun hae pearlins and mabbies an' 
cocks, ^ 

An* some other thing that the ladies ca' smoks^. 
An* how get we that, gin we tak na our rocks, 
And pow what we can at the spinning o't ? 

'Tis needless for us for to tak our remarks 
Frae our mither's miscooking the spinning o't, 
She never kend ought o' the gueed of the sarks, 
Frae this aback to the beginning o't. 
Twa three ell of plaiden was a' that was sought 
By our auld warld bodies, an' that boot be 

bought. 
For in ilka town sickan things was nae wrought, 
So little they kend o' the spinning o't. 



HOOLY AND FAIRLY. 

It is remark-worthy that the song of Hoohj 
and Fairly, in all the old editions of it, is cal- 
led The Drunken Wife d Galloway, which 
localizes it to that country. — Burns. 

THE DRUNKEN WIFE O* GALLOWAY. 

Oh ! what had I to do for to marry ? 
My wife she drinks naething but sack and Ca- 
nary, 
I to her friends complain'd right early, 
O I gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly, 

Hooly and fairly, hooly and fairly, 
O ! gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly. 



First she drank cruromie, and syne she drank 

garie ; 
Now she has druken my bonny grey marie, 
That carried me thro' a' the dubs and the larie 
O I gin, 8fc. 

She has druken her stockins, sa has she her 

shoon. 
And she has druken her bonny new gown ; 
Her wee bit dud sark that co'erd her fu' rarely, 
O ! gin, §-e. 

If she'd drink but her ain things I wad na much 

care, 
But she drinks my claiths I canna weel spare, 
When I'm wi' my gossips, it angers me sairly, 
O ! gin, 8fc, 

My Sunday's coat she's laid it a wad. 
The best blue bonnet e'er was on my head ; 
At kirk and at market I'm cover'd but barely, 
O ! gin, §-0. 

The verra gray mittens that gaed on my ban's. 
To her neebor wife she has laid them in pawns ; 
My bane-headed staff that I lo'ed sae dearly, 
O ! gin, 8fc. 

If there's ony siller, she maun keep the purse ; 
If I seek but a baubee she'll scauld and she'll 

curse, 
She gangs like a queen — I scrimped and sparely, 
O ! gin, ^c. 

I never was given to wrangling nor strife. 
Nor e'er did refuse her the comforts of life ; 
Ere it come to a war I'm ay for a parley. 
O / gin, §-e. 

A pint wi' her cummers I wad her allow. 
But when she sits down she tills herself fou ; 
And when she is fou she's unco camstarie, 
O ! gin, §-c. 

Wlien she comes to the street she roars and 

she rants. 
Has nae fear o' her neebors, nor minds the 

house wants ; 
She rants up some fool-sang, like " Up y^er 

heart, Charlie." 

O ! gin, 8^c. 

And when she comes hame she lays on the lads, 
She ca's the lasses baith limmers and jads. 
And 1, my ain sell, an auld cuckold carlie, 
O ! gin my ivife wad drink hooly and fairly, 

Hooly and fail ly, hooly and fairly, 
O ! gin my wife wad drink hooly and fairly. 



SONGS. 



135 



THE OLD MAN'S SONG. 

BY THE REV. J. SKINNER. 

Tune—" Dumbarton Drums." 

O ! WHY should old age so much wound us I* 
There is nothing in it all to confound us : 

For how happy now am I, 

With ray old wife sitting by, 
And our bairns and our oys f all around us ; 

For how happy now am I, §-c. 

We began in the warld wi' naething, 
And we've jogg'd on, and toil'd for the ae thing ; 
We made use of what we had, 
And our thankful hearts were glad ; 
When we got the bit meat and the claitliing, 
We made iise of what we had, 8fc. 

We have liv'd all our life-time contented, 
Since the day we became first acquainted : 

It's true we've been but poor, 

And we are so to this hour ; 
But we never yet repin'd or lamented. 

It's true we've been but poor, Sfc. 

When we had any stock, we ne'er vuuntit, 
Nor did we hing our heads when we wantit ; 

But we always gave a share 

Of the little we cou'd spare, 
When it pleas'd a kind Heaven to grant it. 

Sut we always gave a share, Sfc. 

We never laid a scheme to be wealthy. 
By means that were cunning or stealthy ; 
But we always had the bliss, 
(And what further could we wiss), 
To be pleas'd with ourselves, and be healthy, 
£ut we always had the bliss, 8fc. 

What tho' we cannot boast of our guineas. 
We have plenty of Jockies and Jeanies j 

And these, I'm certain, are 

More desirable by far 
Than a bag full of poor yellow sleenies. 

And these, I'm certain, are, §'c. 

We have seen many wonder and ferly, 
Of changes that almost are yearly, 

Among rich folks up and down. 

Both in country and in town, 
Who now live but scrimply and barely. 

Among rich folks vp and down, Sfc. 

Then why should people brag of prosperity ? 

A straiten'd life we see is no rarity ; 
Indeed we've been in want. 
And our living's been but scant. 

Yet we never were reduced to need charity. 
Indeed we've been in want, §*c. 



In this house we first came together, 
Where we've long been a father and mither ; 

And tho' not of stone and lime, 

It will last us all our time ; 
And, I hope, we shall ne'er need anither. 

And tho' not of stone and lime, §-c. 

And when wc leave this poor habitation, 
We'll depart with a good commendation ; 
We'll go hand in hand, I wiss. 
To a better house than this, 
To make room for the next generation. 

The7i why should old age so much wound us. 
There is nothing in it all to confound us .* 
For how happy now am I, 
With my old wife sitting by. 
And our bairns and our oys all around «s. 



* This tune requires O to be added at the end of 
each of the long hues, but in reading the bong the O 
is better omitted. 

t Oys — Grand-children. 



TAK YOUR AULD CLOAK ABOUT YE. 

A PART of this old song, according to the 
English set of it, is quoted in Shakspeare. •— 
Burns. 

In winter when the rain rain'd cauld. 

And frost and snaw on ilka hill, 
And Boreas, with his blasts sae bauld, 

Was thrcat'ning a' our ky to kill : 
Then Bell my wife, wha loves na strife. 

She said to me right hastily. 
Get up, goodman, save Cromy's life, 

And tak your auld cloak about ye. 

My Cromie is an useful cow. 

And she is come of a good kyne j 
Aft has she wet the bairns' mou. 

And I am laith that she shou'd tyne. 
Get up, goodman, it is fou time. 

The sun shines in the lift sae hie ; 
Sloth never made a gracious end, 

Go tak your auld cloak about ye. 

My cloak was anes a good grey cloak. 

When it was fitting for my wear ; 
But now it's scantly worth a groat. 

For I have worn't this thirty year ; 
Let's spend the gear that we have won. 

We little ken the day we'll die : 
Then I'll be proud, since I have sworn 

To have a new cloak about me. 



* In the drinking scene in Othello: lago sings,—. 

King Stephen was a worthy peer. 

His breeches cost him but a crown ; 
He held them sixpence all too dear. 

With that he called the tailor lown. 
He was a wight of high renown. 

And thou art but of low degree ; 
'Tis pride that pulls the coiuitry down. 

Then take thnio auld cloak about tliee. 

Tlie old song fiom wliich ihcse stanzas were taken 
was recovered by Dr. f'crcy, and preserved by him iu 
his Ikiiqius of Ancient Poetry. 



136 



BURNS' WORKS. 



In days when our kiug Robert raug, 

His trews they cost but haff a crowu ; 
He said tliey were a groat o'er dear. 

And call'd tlie taylor tliief and loun. 
He was the king that wore a crown, 

And thou the man of laigh degree, 
'Tis pride puts a' the country down, 

Sae tak thy auld cloak about thee. 

Every land has its ain laugh, 

Ilk kind of corn it has its hool, 
I think the warld is a' run wrang, 

When ilka wife her man wad rule ; 
Do ye not see Rob, Jock, and Hab, 

As they are girded gallantly, 
While I sit hurklen in the ase ; 

1*11 have a new cloak about me. 

Goodman, I wate 'tis thirty years. 

Since we did ane anither ken ; 
And we have had between us twa, 

Of lads and bonny lasses ten : 
Now they are women grown and men, 

I wish and pray well may they be ; 
And if you prove a good husband, 

E'en tak your auld cloak about ye. 

Bell my wife, she loves na strife ; 

But she wad guide me, if she can, 
And to maintain an easy life, 

I aft maun yield, tho' I'm goodman . 
Nought's to be won at woman's hand, 

Unless ye give her a' the plea ; 
Then I'll leave aff where I began, 

And tak my auld cloak about me. 



JOHNY FAA, OR THE GYPSIE 
LADDIE. 

The people in Ayrshire begin this song— 

* 

The gypsies cam to my Lord Cassilis' yetfc. 

They have a great many more stanzas in this 
song than I ever yet saw in any printed copy. 
The castle is still remaining at Maybole, where 
his lordship shut up his wayward spouse, and 
kept her for life. — Burns. 

The gypsies came to our good lord's gate. 
And wow but they sang sweetly ; 

They sang sae sweet, and sae very complete, 
That down came the fair ladie. 

And she came tripping down the stair, 

And a' her maids before her j 
As soon as they saw her weelfar'd face, 

They coost the glamer o'er her. 

" Gar tak fra rae this gay raantilc, 

And bring to rae a plaidie ; 
For if kith and kin and a' had sworn, 

I'll follow the gypsic laddie. 



" Yestreen I lay in a well-made bed. 

And my good lord beside me ; 
This night I'll ly in a tenant's barn. 

Whatever shall betide me." 

Come to your bed, says Johny Faa, 
Oh ! come to your bed, my deary ; 

For I vow and swear by the hilt of my sword. 
That your lord shall nae mair come near ye. 

" I'll go to bed to my Johny Faa, 

And I'll go to bed to my deary ; 
For I vow and swear by what past yestreen, 

That my lord shall nae mair come near me. 

" I'll mak a hap to my Johny Faa, 
And I'll mak a hap to my deary ; 

And he's get a' the coat gaes round, 

And ray lord shall nae mair come near me. 

And when our lord came home at e'en, 

And speir'd for his fair lady, 
The tane she cry'd, and the other reply'd. 

She's away wi' the gypsie laddie. 

" Gae saddle to me the black, black steed, 
Gae saddle and mak him ready j 

Before that I either eat or sleep, 
I'll gae seek my fair lady." 

And we were fifteen well-made men, 

Altho' we were nae bonny ; 
And we were a' put down for ane, 

A fair young wanton lady. 



TO DAUNTON ME. 

The two following old stanzas to this time 
have some merit ; — Burns. 

To daunton me, to daunton me, 

ken ye what it is that'll daunton me ?^ 
There's eighty eight and eighty nine, 
And a' that I hae born sinsyne. 

There's cess and press and Presbytrie, 

1 think it will do meikle for to daunton me. 

But to wanton me, to wanton me, 

ken ye what it is that wad wanton me ?— ■ 
To see gude corn upon the rigs. 

And banishment amang the Whigs, 
And right restored where right sud be, 

1 think it would do meikle for to wanton me. 



TO DAUNTON ME. 

Thkre is an old set of the song: not politi- 
cal, but very independent. It runs thus : — 

The bludo red rose at Yule may blaw. 
The simmer lilies blume in suaw. 



SONGS. 



137 



The frost may freeze the deepest sea, 
But an auld man shall never daunton mc. 
To daunton me, and me sae young, 
Wi' his fause heart and flatterin' tongue, 
That is the thing ye ne'er shall see. 
For an auld man shall never daunton me. 

For a' his meal, for a' his maut, 
For a' his fresh beef, and his saut. 
For a' his gowd and white monie, 
An auld man shall never daunton me. 
To daunton me, &c. 

His gear may buy him kye and yowes. 
His gear may buy him glens and knowes, 
But me he shall not buy nor fee. 
For an auld man shall never daunton mc. 
To daunton me, &c. 

He hirples twa fau'd as he dow. 

Wi' his teethless gab, and his bald pow, 

And the rheum rins down ffae his red blue e'e. 

But an auld man shall never daunton me. 



THE BONNIE LASS MADE THE BED 
TO ME. 

" The Bonnie Lass made the Bed to me," 
was composed on an amour of Charles IL when 
skulking in the North, about Aberdeen, in the 
time of the usurpation. He formed une petite 
affaire with a daughter of the House of Port- 
letham, who was the lass that made the bed to 
him : — two verses of it are, 

I kiss'd her lips sae rosy red, 

While the tear stood blinkin in her e'e ; 
I said my lassie dinna cry. 

For ye ay shall mak the bed to me. 

She took her mither's winding sheet, 

And o't she made a sark to me ; 
Blythe and merry may she be, 

The lass that made the bed to me. 

Burns. 



I HAD A HORSE AND I HAD NAE 
MAIR. 

This story was founded on fact. A John 
Hunter, ancestor to a very respectable farming 
family who live in a place in the parish, I think, 
of Galston, called Barr-mill, was the luckless 
hero that had a horse and had nae mair. — For 
some little youthful follies he found it necessary 
to make a retreat to the West- Highlands, where 
he feed himself to a Highland Laird, for that 
is the expression of all the oral editions of the 
song I ever heard. — The present JNIr. Hunter, 
who told me the anecdote, is the great-grand- 
child to our hero. — Burns. 



I HAD a horse, and I had nae mair, 

I gat him fiae my daddy ; 
My purse was light, and my heart was sair, 

But my wit it was fu' ready. 
And sae I thought me on a time, 

Outwittens of my daildy, 
To fee mysel to a 1 iwland laird, 

Wiia had a bonnie lady, 

I wrote a letter, and thus began, 

" Madam, be not offended, 
I'm o'er the lugs in love wi' you, 

And care not tho' ye kend it : 
For I get little frae the laird, 

And far less frae my daddy, 
And I would blythely be tjie man 

Would strive to please my lady." 

She read my letter, and she leugh, 

" Ye needna been sae blate, man ; 
You might hae come to me yoursel. 

And tauld me o' your state, man : 
Ye might hae come to me yoursel, 

Outwittens o' ony body. 
And made John Gowkston of the laird, 

And kiss'd his bonnie lady." 

Then she pat siller in my purse. 

We drank wine in a coggie ; 
She feed a man to rub my horse. 



And 



but I was vogie. 



But I gat ne'er sa sair a fleg, 
Since I came frae my daddy. 

The laird came, rap rap, to the yett. 
When I was wi' his lady. 

Then she pat me below a chair. 

And happ'd me wi' a plaidie ; 
But I was like to swarf wi' fear, 

And wish'd me wi' my daddy. 
The laird went out, he saw na me, 

I went when I was ready : 
I promis'd, but I ne'er gade back 

To kiss his bonnie lady. 



AULD ROBIN GRAY. 

This air was formerly called The Bride- 
groom greets when the sun gangs down. The 
words are by Lady Ann Lindsay. — Burns. 

When the sheep are in the fauld, and the ky at 
hame, 

And a' the warld to sleep are gane ; 
The waes of my heart fa' in show'rs frae my ee, 

When my gudeman lyes sound by me. 

Young Jamie loo'd me weel, and he sought me 
for his bride. 
But saving a crown he had naething beside ; 
To make that crown a pound, my Jamie gade 
to sea. 
And the crown and the pound were baitU for 
me. 



3B 



138 



BURNS' WORKS. 



He had nae been awa a week but only twa, 
When my mother she fell sick, and the cow 
was stown awa ; 

My father brak his arm, and my Jamie at the sea, 
And auld Robin Gray came a courting me. 

My father coudna work, and my mother coudna 
spin, 
I toil'd day and night, but their bread I coud- 
na win ; 
Auld Rob raaintaiu'd them baith, and wi' tears 
in his ee, 
Said, " Jenny, for their sakes, O marry me." 

My heart it said nay, I look'd for Jamie back. 
But the wind it blew high, and the ship it 
was a wrack ; 

The ship it was a wrack, why didna Jenny die. 
And why do I live to say, waes me ? 

My father argued sair, tho' my mither didna 
speak, 
She look'd in my face till my heart was like 
to break ; 

So they gi'ed him my hand, tho' my heart was 
in the sea. 
And auld Robin Gray is gudeman to me. 

I hadna been a wife a week but only four, 
When sitting sae mournfully at the door, 

I saw my Jamie's wraith, for I coudua think it he, 

'Till he said, " I'm come back for to marry 

thee." 

sair did we greet, and mickle did we say. 
We took but ae kiss, and we tore ourselves 

away, 

1 wish I were dead ! but I'm no like to die, 

And why do I live to say, waes me ! 

I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin, 
I darna think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin ; 

But I'll do my best a gudewife to be, 
For auld Robin Gray is kind unto me. 



UP AND WARN A' WILLIE. 

The expression, " Up and war7i a^ WlUie,^' 
alludes to the Crantara, or warning of a High- 
land Clan to arms. Not understanding this, 
the Lowlanders in the west and south say, " Up 
and waur thein a\ &c. This edition of the 
song I got from Tom Niel,* of facetious fame, 
in Edinburgh. 

Up and warn a\ Willie, 

Warn, warn a' ,- 
To hear mij canty Highland sang, 
Relate the thing I saw, Willie. -^-BuRtis. 



* Tom Niel was a carpenter in Edinbuvgli, and lived 
chiefly by making coffins. He was also Precentor, or 
Clerk, in one of the clunches. He liad ;i good strong 
voice, and was greatly distinguisiied by his poweis of 
nim\iery, and Ivis humorous maimer of sinring the old 
bcottibh ballads. 



When we gaed to tlie braes o' Mar, 

And to the wapon-shaw, Willie, 
Wi' true design to serve the king, 
And banish whigs awa, Willie. 
Up and warn a', Willie, 
Warn, warn a' ; 
For lords and lairds came there bedeen, 
And wou but they were braw, Willie, 

But when the standard was set up, 

Right fierce the wind did blaw, Willie ; 
The royal nit upon the tap 

Down to the ground did fa', Willie. 
Up and warn a', Willie, 
Warn, warn a' ; 
Then second-sighted Sandy said, 
We'd do nae gude at a', Willie. 

But when the army join'd at Perth, 

The bravest e'er ye saw, Willie, 
We didna doubt the rogues to rout, 
Restore our king and a', Willie. 
Up and warn a', Willie, 
Warn, warn a' ; 
The pipers play'd frae right to left, 
O whirry whigs awa, Willie. 

But when we march'd to Sherra-muir, 

And there the rebels saw, Willie, 
Brave Argyle attack'd our right. 
Our flank and front and a', Willie. 
Up and warn a', Willie, 
Warn, warn a' ; 
Traitor Huntly soon gave way, 
Seaforth, St. Clair and a', Willie. 

But brave Glengary on our right, 

The rebels' left did claw, Willie ; 
He there the greatest slaughter made 
That ever Donald saw, Willie. 
Up and warn a' Willie, 
Warn, warn a' ; 
And Whittam s — t his breeks for fear. 
And fast did rin awa, Willie. 

For he ca'd us a Highland mob, 

And soon he'd slay us a' Willie, 
But we chas'd him back to Stirling brig, 
Dragoons and foot and a', Willie. 
Up and warn a', Willie, 
Warn, Avarn a' ; 
At length we rallied on a hdl. 
And briskly up did draw, Willie. 

But when Argyle did view our line, 

And them in order saw, Willie, 
He streight gaed to Dumblane again, 
And back his left did draw, Willie. 
Up and warn a', Willie, 
Warn, warn a' ; 
Then we to Auchteraider march'd, 
To wait a better fa', Willie. 

Now if yc spear wha wan the day, 
I've tcli'd you whut I saw, Willie, 



SONGS. 



139 



Wo haith (lifl f\^]\t ;;nil \m{.\\ did beat; 
And baitli did lin aw.i, Willie. 
TTp and warn ;i'. M'^illio, 
Warn, warn a' ; 
For seoond-sightcMl Sandie said, 

We'd do iiae gudo at a', Willie. 



THE BLYTHSOME BRIDAL. 

I FIND the Uli/thsome Bridal in James Wat- 
son's Collection of Scots Poems, printed at 
Edinburgh in 1700. 

This song has hmnour and a felicity of ex- 
pression worthy of Ramsay, with even more 
than his wonted broadness and sprightly lan- 
guage. The Witty Catalogue of Names, with 
their Historical Epithets, are done in the true 
Lowland Scottish taste of an age ago, when 
every householder was nicknamed either from 
some prominent part of his character, person, 
or lands and housen, which ho rented. Thus — 
" Shape-fitted liob.^' " Thraion-mou d Rah 
o' the Dubs.^' " Moarin Jock ?!' the Swair." 
*' Slaverin Simmie o' Todshatr.'' " Soitpk 
Kate o' Irongray,'''' &c. &c Burns. 

Ft let us all to the bridal, 

For there will be lilting there ; 
For Jockie's to be married to IMaggic, 

The lass wi' the gauden hair. 
And there will be lang-kail and pottage, 

And bannocks of barley-meal, 
And there will be good sawt herring, 
To relish a cog of good ale. 
Fy let us all to the bridal, 

For there tvUl be liltinr/ there, 
For Jockie's to be marry^d to Maggie, 
The lass with the gauden hair. 

And there will be Sandie the sutor, 

And ' Will' with the meikle mow ; 
And there will be Tam the ' bluter,' 

With Andrew the tinkler, I trow. 
And there will be bow-legged Robbie, 

With thumbless Katie's goodman ; 
And there will be blue-cheeked Dowbic, 

And Lawrie the laird of the land. 
Fy let us all, §-c. 

And there will be sow-libber Patie, 

And plouckie-fac'd Wat i' the mill, 
Capper-nos'd Francie, and Gibbie, 

That wons in the how of the hill ; 
And there will be Alaster Sibbic, 

Wha in with black Bessy did mool. 
With sneevHng Lillie, and Tibbie, 

The lass that stands aft on the stool. 
Fy let us all, 8fc. 

And Madge that was buckled to Stccnie, 
And coft him [grey] brecks to his arse, 

' Wha after was' hangit for stealing. 
Great mercy it happened M W?r?c : 



And there will be gleed Geordie .Tanners, 
And Kirsh v.i' the lily-white leg, 

Wha ' gade' to the south for manners, 
And bang'd up her wame in INIons Meg. 
Fy let MS all, ^c. 

And there will be Judan Maclawrie, 

And blinkin daft Barbra ' Macleg,* 
Wi' flae-lugged, sharny-fao'd Lawrie, 

And shangy-mou'd haluck(!t INIeg. 
And there will be happer-ars'd Nansy, 

And fairy-facM Flowrie be name. 
Muck Madie, and fat-hipped Lizie, 

The lass Vv-ith the gauden wame 
Fy let us all, ike. 

And there will be girn-again Gibbie, 

With his glakit wife .Jennie Bell, 
And Misle-sljinn'd ]Mungo Macapie, 

The lad that was skipper himsol. 
There lads and lasses in pearlings 

Will feast in the heart of the ha', 
On sybows, and ryfarts, and carlings, 

That are baith sodden and raw. 
Fy let us all, 8fc. 

And there will be fadges and brachen, 

With fouth of good gappoks of skate, 
Pow-sodie, and drammock, and crowdie. 

And callour nout-feet in a plate ; 
And there will be partans and buckles, 

Speltlens and whytens euew, 
And singed sheep-heads, and a haggizc, 

And scadlips to sup till ye spew. 
Fy let us all, Sfc. 

And there will be lapper'd-milk kebbucks, 

And sowens, and farles, and baps. 
With swats, and well-scraped paunches, 

And brandy in stoups and in caps ; 
And tliere will be meal-kail and castocks, 

With skink to sup till ye rive ; 
And rosts to rost on a brander. 

Of flouks that were taken alive. 
Fy let tis all, ^c. 

Scrapt haddocks, wilks, dilse, and tangles. 

And a mill of good snishing to prie ; 
When weary with eating and drinking. 
We'll rise up and dance till we die. 
Thenfy let us all to the bridal. 

For there ivill be lilting there ; 
For Jockie^s to be marry^d to Maggy, 
The lass with the gauden hair. 



O CAN YE LABOUR LEA, YOUNG 
MAN. 

Trris song has long been known among the 
inlubitants of Nithsdale and Galloway, where 
it is a great favourite. The fii-^t verse phould 
l.'c restored to li^ original state. 



140 



BURNS' WORKS. 



I FEED a lad at Roodsmass, 

Wi* siller pennies three ; 
When he came home at Martinmass, 

He could nae labour lea. 

canna ye labour lea, young lad, 
O canna ye labour lea ? 

Indeed, quo' he, my hand's out — ■ 
An' up his graith packed he. 

This old way is the truest, for the terms, 
Hoodmass is the hiring fair, and Halloiomass 
the first of the half year BuiiNs. 

1 FEED a man at Martinmass, 

Wi' arle-pennies three ; 
But a' the faute I had to him, 

He could nae labour lea. 
O can ye labour lea, young man, 

O can ye labour lea ? 
Gae hack the gate ye came again, 
Ye'se never scorn me. 

O clappin's gude in Febarwar, 

An' kissins sweet in May ; 
But what signifies a young man's love 

An't dinua last for ay. 
O can ye, §*c. 

O kissin is the key of luve. 

An clappin is the lock, 
An' makin-of's the best thing 

That e'er a young thing got. 
O can ye, ^c. 



IN THE GARB OF OLD GAUL. 

This tune was the composition of General 
Reid, and called by him The Highland, or 42rf 
Regiment's March. The Avords are by Sir 
Harry Erskine. — Burns. 

In the garb of old Gaul, wi' the fire of old 

Rome, 
From the heath-cover'd mountains of Scotia we 

come, 
W^here the Romans endeavour'd our country to 

gain. 
But our ancestors fought, and they fought not 
in vain. 
Such our love of liberty, our country, and 

our laws, 
That like our ancestors of old, we stand 

by Freedom's cause ; 
We'll bravely fight like heroes hold, for 

honour and applause. 
And defy the French, with all their art, 
to alter our laws. 

No effeminate customs our sinews unbrace, 

No luxurious tables enervate our race. 

Our loud-sounding pipe bears the true martial 

strain, 
So do we the old Scottish valour retain. 
Such our love, §x. 



We're tall as the oak on the mount of the vale. 
As swift as the roe which the hound doth assail. 
As the full-moon in autumn our shields do ap- 
pear, 
Minerva would dread to encounter our spear. 
Such our love, §*c. 

As a storm in the ocean when Boreas blows, 
So are we enrag'd when we rush on our foes ; 
We sons of the mountains, tremendous as rocks, 
Dash the force of our foes with our thundering 
strokes. 

Such our love, S^c, 

Quebec and Cape Breton, the pride of old 
France, 

In their troops fondly boasted till we did ad- 
vance ; 

But when our claymores they saw us produce. 

Their courage did fail, and they sued for a truce. 
Such our love, 8fc.. 

In our realm may the fury of faction long cease, 
May our councils be wise, and our commerce 

increase ; 
And in Scotia's cold climate may each of us find, 
That our friends still prove true, and our beau- 
ties prove kind. 
Then we'll defend our liberty, our country, 

and our laws. 
And teach our late posterity to fight in 

Freedonis cause. 
That they like our ancestors hold, 8fc. 



WOO'D AND MA-RRIED AND A' 

Woo'd and married and a', 
Woo'd ajid married and a'. 

Was she not very weel aff, 

Was woo'd and married and a' / 

The bride came out o' the byre, 

And O as she dighted her cheeks, 
" Sirs, I'm to be married the night, 

And has nouther blanket nor sheets ; 
Has nouther blankets nor sheets. 

Nor scarce a coverlet too ; 
The bride that has a' to borrow. 

Has e'en right meikle ado." 

Woo'd and married, 8fc. 

Out spake the bride's father. 

As he came in frae the pleugh, 
" O had yere tongue, my daughter. 

And yese get gear enough ; 
The stirk that stands i' the tether, 

And our bra' basin'd yade. 
Will carry ye hanie yere corn ; 

What wad ye be at ye jade ?" 

Woo'd and married, §"c. 

Outspake the bride's mither, 
" What deil needs a' this pride ? 



SONGS 



141 



I had nae a plack in my pouch 

That night I was a bride ; 
My gown was linsy-woolsy, 

And ne'er a sark ava, 
And ye hae ribbons and buskins 

Mair than ane or twa." 

Woo'd and married, §t. 

" What's the matter ?" quo' WilHe, 

" Tho' we be scant o' chiiths, 
We'll creep the nearer thegither, 

And we'll smoor a' the fleas ; 
Simmer is coming on, 

And we'll get teats o' woo ; 
And we'll get a lass o' our ain, 

And she'll spin claiths anew." 

Woo^d and married, §*c. 

Outspake the bride's brither. 

As he came in wi' the kye, 
" Pair Willie had ne'er hae ta'en ye, 

Had he kent ye as weel as I ; 
For you're baith proud and saucy. 

And no for a puir man's wife, 
Gin I canna get a better, 

I'se never take ane i' my life." 

Woo'd and married, &cc. 

Outspake the bride's sister, 

As she came in fi-ae the byre, 
" O gin I were but married, 

It's a' that I desire ; 
But we puir folk maun live single, 

And do the best we can ; 
I dinna care what I should want, 
If I could but get a man." 
Woo'd and married and a', 

Woo'd and married and a. 
Was she not very weel aff, 

Was woo'd and married and a\ 



The lasses are lonely, dowle and wae : 

Nae daffin, nae gabbing, 

But sighing and sabbing, 

Ilk ane lifts her leglin, and Wes her away. 

At e'en in the gloming 
Nae swankies are roaming, 
'Mang stacks with the lasses at bogle to play j 
For ilk ane sits drearie, 
Lamenting her dearie, 
The flow'rs o' the forest wh' are a' wed away. 

In har'st at the shearing 
Nae blythe lads are jeering. 
The Bansters are lyart, and runkled, and grey : 
At fairs nor at preaching, 
Nae wooing, nae fleeching. 
Since our bra foresters are a' wed away. 

O dule for the order ! 
Sent our lads to the border ! 
The English for anes, by guile wan the day : 
The flow'rs of the forest 
Wha aye shone the foremost, 
The prime of the land lie cauld in the clay. 



THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST. 

A SUCCESSFUL imitation of an old song is 
really attended with less difficulty than to con- 
vince a blockhead that one of these jeu d'esprits 
is a forgery. This fine ballad is even a more 
palpable imitation than Hardihnute. The 
manners indeed are old, but the language is of 
yesterday. Its author must very soon be dis- 
covered. — Burns. 

BY JANE ELLIOT. I 

I've heard a lilting 
At the ewes milking, 
Lasses a' lilting before the break o' day, 
But now I hear moaning 
On ilka green loaning. 
Since our brave forresters are a' wed away. 

At buchts in the morning 
Nae blythe lads are scorning j 



THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST. 

BY MRS. COCKBURN. 

I've seen the smiling of fortune beguiling, 
I've tasted her favours, and felt her decay ; 

Sweet is her blessing, and kind her caressing, 
But soon it is fled — it is fled far away. 

I've seen the forest adorned of the foremost. 
With flowers of the fairest, both pleasant and 
gay: 
Full sweet was their blooming, their scent the 
air perfuming. 
But now they are wither'd, and a' wede awae. 

I've seen the morning, with gold the hills a- 
dorning, 
And the red storm roaring, before the parting 
day ; 
I've seen Tweed's silver streams, glittering in 
the sunny beams. 
Turn drumly and dark, as they rolled on their 
way. 

O fickle fortune r why this cruel sporting ? 
Wliy thus perplex us poor sons of a day ? 
Thy frowns cannot fear me, thy smiles cannot 
cheer me. 
Since the flowers of the forest are a' wede 
awae. 



142 



BURNS' WORKS. 



TIBBIE DUNBAR. 

Tune—" Johnny M'Gill." 

This tune is said to be the composition of 
John M'Gill, fiddler, in Girvan. He called it 
after his own name — Burns. 

O, WILT thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar 
O, wilt thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dun- 
bar ; 

Wilt thou ride on a horse, or be drawn in a car. 
Or walk by my side, O sweet Tibbie Dunbar ? 

I carena thy daddic, his lands and his money, 
I carena thy kin, sae high and sae lordly : 

But say thou wilt hae me for better for waur, 
And come in thy coatie, sweet Tibbie Dun- 

harl 



THIS IS NO MINE AIN HOUSE. 

The first half stanza is old, the rest is Ram- 
say's. The old woi-ds are : — Burns. 

O THIS is no mine ain house. 

My ain house, my ain house ; 
This is no mine ain house, 

I ken by the biggin o't. 

There's bread and cheese are my door-cheeks, 
Are my door-cheeks, are my door-cheeks ; 

There's bread and cheese are my door -cheeks ; 
And pan-cakes the riggin o't. 

This is no my ain wean, 

My ain wean, my ain wean ; 
This is no my ain wean, 

I ken by the greetie o't. 

I'll tak the curchie aff my head, 

Aff my head, afF my head ; 
I'll tak the curchie aff my head, 

And row't about the feetie o't. 

The tune is an old Highland air, called Shuan 
truish willighan. 



Sandilands, Weir, and Oliphant, (one of them 
resided at Gosford, and the others in the neigh- 
bourhood), were occasionally visited by their 
royal and gallant admirer, which gave rise to 
the following satirical advice to his Majesty, 
from Sir David Lindsay, of the Mount, Lord 
Lyon. 

Sow not your seed on Sandylands, 
Spend not your strength in TFeir, 
And ride not on an Elephant, 
For spoiling o' your gear. — Burns. 



THE GABERLUNZIE-MAN. 

The Gaberlunzie-Man is supposed to com- 
Ofnemorate an intrigue of James the Fifth. ]\Ir. 
Callander of Craigforth, published some years 
ago, an edition of Christ's Kirk on the Green, 
and the Gaherhinzie-Man, with notes critical 
and historical. James the Fifth is said to have 
been fond of Gosford, in Aberlady Parish, and 
that it was suspected by his coteniporaries, that 
in his frequent oxcursions to that part of the 
.country he had other pur|)oses in view besides 
golfing and archery. Three favourite ladieS; 



The pawky auld carle came o'er the lee, 
Wi' many good e'ens and days to me, 
Saying, Goodwife, for your courtesie. 

Will ye lodge a silly poor man ! 
The night was cauld, the carle was wat, 
And down ayont the ingle he sat ; 
My daughter's shoulders he 'gan to clap. 

And cadgily ranted and sang. 

O wow ! quo' he, were I as free. 
As first when I saw this country, 
How blyth and merry wad I be ! 

And I wad never think lang. 
He grew canty, and she gi;ew fain ; 
But little did her auld mii^y ken 
What thir slee twa togither were say'n, 

When wooing they were sae thrang. 

And O ! quo' he, ann ye were as black 
As e'er the crown of my dady's hat, 
'Tis I wad lay thee by my back. 

And awa' wi' me thou shou'd gang. 
And O ! quo' she, ann I were as white, 
As e'er the snaw lay on the dike, 
I'd dead me braw, and lady like. 

Arid awa' with thee I'd gang. 

Between the twa was made a plot ; 

They raise awee before the cock. 

And wilily they shot the lock, ^ 

And fast to the bent are they gane. 
Up the morn the auld wife raise. 
And at her leisure put on her claise ; 
Syne to the servant's bed she gaes, 

To speer for the silly poor man.' 

She gaed to the bed where the beggar lay. 
The strae was cauld, he was away, 
She clapt her hand, cry'd Waladay, 

For some of our gear will be gane. 
Some ran to coffers, and some to kists. 
But nought was stown that cou'd be mist, 
She danc'd her lane, cry'd. Praise be blest, 

I have lodg'd a leal poor man. 

Since nathing's awa', as we can learn. 
The kirn's to kirn, and milk to earn, 
Gae butt the house, lass, and waken my bairn, 
Aud bid her come quickly ben. 



SONGS. 



US 



The servant g;idc where the daii;^hter hiy, 
The sheets was caiihl, she was away, 
And fast to liev goudwife gau say, 
She's aff with the Caheiluuzie-mau. 

O fy gar ride, and fy gar rin, 

And haste ye iind these traytors again ; 

For she's be burnt, and he's be slain, 

The wearifu' Gaberhinzie-inan. 
Some rade upo' horse, some ran a fit. 
The wife was wood, and out o' her wit : 
She cou'd na gang, nor yet cou'd she sit, 

But ay she curs'd and she ban'd. 

Mean time far hind out o'er the lea, 

Fu' snug in a glen, where uane cou'd see, 

The twa, with kindly sport and glee, 

Cut frae a new clieese a whang : ' 
The priving was good, it pleas'd them baith, 
To lo'e her for ay, he gae her his aith ; 
Quo' she, to leave thee I will be laith, 

INIy winsome Gaberlunzie-man. 

O kend my minny I were wi' you, 
lllsardly wad she crook her mou. 
Sic a poor man she'd never trow, 

After the Gaberlunzie-raan. 
INIy dear, quo' he, ye're yet o'er young. 
And ha' nae lear'd the beggar's tongue, 
To follow me frae town to town. 

And carry the Gaberlunzie on. 

Wi' cauk and keel I'll win your bread. 

And spindles and whorles for them wha need, 

Whilk is a gentle trade indeed. 

To carry the Gaberlunzie — O. 
I'll bow my leg, and crook my knee, 
And draw a black clout o'er my eye, 
A cripple or blind they will ca' me, 

While we shall be merry and sing. 



JONNIE COUP. 

This satirical song was composed to comuie- 
morate General Cope's defeat at Preston-Pans, 
in 1745, when he marched against the clans. 

The air was the tune of an old song, of whicli 
I have heard some verses, but now only remem- 
ber the title, which was, 

Will ye go to the coals in the morning. 
Burns. 



When Charlie look'd the letter upon, 
lie drew his sword the scabbard from, . 
Come follow me, my merry merry men, 
And we'll meet wi' Coup i' the morning. 
Hey Jonnie Coup, Sfc. 

Now, Jonnie, be as good as your word, 
Come let us try both lire and sword, 
And dinna rin awa' like a frighted bird, 
That's chas'd frae it's nest in the morning. 
Hei/ Jonnie Coup, ^c. 

When Jonnie Coup he heard of this. 
He thought it wadna be amiss 
To hac a horse in readiness, 
To flie awa' i' the morning. 

Hei/ Jonnie Coup, SfC. 

Fy now Jonnie get up and rin. 
The Highland bagpipes makes a din. 
It's best to sleep in a hale skin, 
For 'twill be a bluddie morning. 

Hei/ Jonnie Coup, §c. 

When Jonnie Coup to Berwick came, 

They spear'd at him, where's a' your men^ 
The deil confound me gin I ken, 
For I left them a' i' the morning. 

Hey Jonnie Coup, §'c. 

Now, Jonnie, trouth ye was na blate, 
To come wi' the news o' your ain defeat, 
And leave your men in sic a strait, 
So early in the morning. 

Hey Jonnie Coup, 8fc. 

Ah ! faith, co' Jonnie, I got a fleg. 
With their claymores and philabegs. 
If I face them again, deil break my legs. 
So I wish you a good morning. 

Hey Jonnie Coup, SfC. 



Coup sent a letter frae Dunbar, 
Charlie, meet me an ye dare, 
And I'll learn you the art of war, 
If you'll meet wi' me in the morning. 

Hey Jonnie Coup, are ye walling yet ? 

Or are your drums a-heuting yet ? 

If ye were icaldnr/ 1 woud tvait 

To gang to the coals V tlie morning. 



A WAUKUIFE MINNIE. 

I PICKED up this old song and tune from a 
country girl in Nithsdale, — I never met with it 
elsewhere in Scotland. — Bukns. 

Wjiake are you gaun, my bonnie lass, 

Wliere are you gaun, my hinuie, 
She auswer'd me right saucilie, 

An errand for my minuie. 

O whare live ye, ray bonnie lass, 

O whare live ye, my hinnie, 
By yon burn-side, gin ye maun ken. 

In a wee house wi' my minnie. 

But I foor up the glen at een. 

To see my bonnie lassie ; 
And lang before the gray mora cam, 

She was na hauf sac saucie. 



lU 



BURNS' WORKS. 



O weary fa' the waukrife cock, 
And the foumart lay his crawln ! 

He wauken'd the auld wife frae her sleep, 
A wee blink or the dawin. 

An angry wife I wat she raise. 

And o'er the bed she brought her ; 

And wi' a mickle hazle rung 

She made her a weei pay'd dochter. 

O fare thee weel, my bonnie lass ! 

O fare thee weel, my hinnie ! 
Thou art a gay and a bonnie lass, 

But thou hast a waukrife minnie.* 



TULLOCHGORUM. 

This, first of songs, is the master-piece of 
my old friend Skinner. He was passing the day 
at the town of Ellon, I think it was, in a friend's 
house whose name was Montgomery — INIrs. 
Montgomery observing, en passant, that the 
beautiful reel of Tullochqorum wanted words, 
she begged them of JMr. Skinner, who gratified 
her wishes, and the wishes of every lover of 
Scottish song, in this most excellent ballad. 

These particulars I had from the author's 
son. Bishop Skinner, at Aberdeen. — Burns. 

Come gie's a sang, Montgomery cry'd, 
And lay your disputes all aside. 
What signifies't for folks to chide 

For what was done before them : 
Let Whig and Toiy all agree, 

Whig and Tory, Whig and Tory, 
Whig and Tory all agree, 

To drop their Whig-mig-morum. 
Let Whig and Tory all agree 
To spend the night wi' mirth and glee, 
And cheerfid sing alang wi' me, 

The Reel o' TuUochgorum. 

O, Tullochgorum's my delight, 

It gars us a* in ane unite. 

And ony sumph that keeps up spite. 

In conscience I abhor him : 
For blythe and cheerie we'll be a', 

Blythe and cheerie, blythe and cheerie, 
Blythe and cheerie we'll be a', 

And make a happy quorum, 
For blythe and cheerie we'll be a'. 
As lang as we hae breath to draw, 
And dance till we be like to fa* 

The Reel o' TuUochgorum.' 



* The peasantry have a verse superior to some of 
those recovered by Burns, which is worthy of notice. 
— iU 

" O though thy hair was gowden weft, 

An' thy lips o' drapping hinnie. 
Thou hast gotten the clog that winna cling 

For a' you're waukrife roinnie." 



What needs there be sae great a fraise, 
Wi' dringing dull Italian lays, 
I wadna gie our ain Strathspeys 

For half a hunder score o' them. 
They're dowf and dowie at the best, 
Dowf and dowie, dowf and dowie, 
Dowf and dowie at the best, 

Wi' a' their variorum ; 
They're dowf and dowie at the best. 
Their allegros and a' the rest. 
They canna please a Scottish taste, 

Compar'd wi' TuUochgorum. 

Let warldly worms their minds oppress 
Wi' fears o' want and double cess, 
And sullen sots themseUs distress 
Wi' keeping up decorum : 
Shall we sae sour and sulky sit. 

Sour and sulky, sour and sulky. 
Sour and sulky shall we sit 
Like old philosophorum ! 
Shall we sae sour and sulky sit, 
Wi' neither sense, nor mirth, nor wit. 
Nor ever try to shake a fit 

To the Reel o' TuUochgorum ? 

May choicest blessings ay attend 
Each honest, open-hearted friend, 
And calm and quiet be his end. 

And a' that's good watch o'er him 
INIay peace and plenty be his lot, 

Peace and plenty, peace and plenty, 
Peace and plenty be his lot, 

And dainties a great store o' them ; 
May peace and plenty be his lot, 
Unstain'd by any vicious spot. 
And may he never want a groat. 

That's fond o' TuUochgorum ! 

But for the sullen frumpish fool. 
That loves to be oppression's tool, 
May envy gnaw his rotten soul. 

And discontent devour him j 
May dool and sorrow be his chance, 

Dool and sorrow, dool and sorrow, 
Dool and sorrow be his chance, 
And nane say, wae's me for him ! 
May dool and sorrow be his chance, 
Wi' a' the ills that come frae France, 
Wha e'er he be that winna dance 
The Reel o' TuUochgorum. 



JOHN O' BADENYON. 

This excellent song is also the composition 
of my worthy friend, old Skinner, at Linshait. 
— Burns. 

When first I cam to be a man 

Of twenty years or so, 
I thought myself a handsome youth, 
Aud ffiiu the world would know ; 



SONGS. 



143 



Id host attire 1 stept abroad, 

With spirits brisk ami gay, 
And here auil there and every where 

Was Hke a morn in I\Iay ; 
No care I had nor fear of want, 

But ramK>led up and (Jown, 
And for a beau I miglxt have paist 

In country or in town ; 
1 stiU was pleas'd where'er I went, 

And when I was alone, 
\ tuu'd my pipe and pleas'd myself 

Wi' John o' Badenyon. 

Now in the days of youthful prime 

A mistress I must find, 
Fov love^ I heard, gave one an air, 

And ev'n improved the mind : 
On Phillis fair above the rest 

Kind fortune fixt my eyes, 
Her piercing beauty struck my heart, 

And she became my choioe ; 
To Cupid now with hearty ])rayer 

I oft'er'd many a vow ; 
And danc'd and sung, and sigh'd, and swore, 

As other lovers do ; 
But, when at last I breath'd my flame, 

I found her cold as stone ; 
I left the girl, and tun'd my pipe 

To John o' Badenyon. 

When loi^e had thus my heart beguil'd 

With foolish hopes and vain ; 
To frie7iil6hip\s port I steer'd my course, 

And laugh'd at lovers' pain ; 
A friend I got by lucky chance, 

'Twas somethmg like divine, 
An honest friend's a precious gift, 

And such a gift was mine ; 
And now whatever might betide, 

A happy man was I, 
In any strait I knew to whom 

I freely might apply ; 
A strait soon came : my friend 1 try'd ; 

He heard, and spuru'd my moan ; 
I hy'd me home, and tun'd my pipe 

To John o' Badenyon. 

Methought I should be wiser next, 

And would a. patriot turn, 
Began to doat on Johnny Wilkes, 

And cry up Parson Hornc.* 
Their manly spirit I adniir'd. 

And prais'd their noble zeal, 
Who had with flaming tongue and pen 

Maintain'd the public weal ; 
But e'er a mouth or two had past, 

I found myself betray'd, 
'Twas self and parti/ after all, 

For a' the stir they made ; 
At last I saw the factious knaves 

Insult the very throne, 
I curs'd them a', and tun'd my pipe 

To John o' Badenyon. 

* This song was composetl when Wilkes, Home, 
tc were makuig a uoisc about liberty. 



What next to do I mus'd a whde, 

Still hoping to succeed, 
I pitch'd on houks for company, 

And gravely try'd to read : 
I bought and borr^wM every where, 

And study'd night and day, 
Nor miss'd what dean or doctor wrote 

That ha])peu'd in my way : 
Philosophy I now esteem'd 

The ornament of youtli. 
And carefully through many a page 

I hunted after truth. 
A thousand various schemes I try'd, 

And yet was pleas'd with none, 
I threw them by, and tun'd my pipe 

To John o' Badenyon. 

And now ye youngsters every where, 

That wish to make a show, 
Take heed in time, nor fondly hope 

For happiness below ; 
Wliat you may fancy pleasure here, 

Is but an empty name. 
And ffirls, and frieiuh, and hooks, aud so, 

You'll find them all the same ; 
Then be advised and warning take 

Fiom such a man as me ; 
I'm neither Pope nor Caidinal, 

Nor one of high degree ; 
You'll meet displeasure every where ; 

Then do as I have done. 
E'en tune your pipe and please yourselves 

With John o* Badenyon. 



THE LAIRD OF COCKPEN. 

Herk is a verse of this lively old song that 
used to be sung after these printed ones.— 
Burns. 

O, WHA has lien wi' our Lord yestreen ? 
O, wha has lien wi' our Lord yestreen ? 
In his soft down bed, O, twa fowk were the sted. 
An' whare lay the chamber maid, lassie, yes- 
treen ? 



COCKPEN. 

X), WHEN she came ben she bobbed fu' law, 
O, when she came ben she bobbed fu' law, 
And when she came ben she kiss'd Cockpen, 
And syne deny'd she did it at a'. 

And was na Cockpen right saucie with a*. 
And was na Cockpen right saucie with a', 
In leaving the daughter of a Lord, 
And kissin a collier lassie, an' a' ? 

O never look down my lassie, at a', 

O never look down my lassie, at a', 

Thy lips are as sweet, and thy figure complete, 

As the finest dame in castle or ha*« 

39 



146 



Tho* thou has nae silk aud holland sae sma', 
Tho' thou has nae silk aud holland sae sma', 
Thy coat and thy sark are thy aiu handy-wark, 
Aad Lady Jean was never sae braw ! 



BURNS' WORKS. 

CA' THE EWES TO THE KNOWES. 



The following set of this song is now very 
common. It is ascribed to the authoress of the 
novel of " Marriage :" 

THE LAIRD OF COCKPEN. 

Tune—" The Laird of Coekpen." 

The Laird o' Coekpen, he is proud an' he's 

great ; 
His mind is ta'en up wi' the things of the state : 
He wanted a wife his braw house to keep ; 
But favour wi' wooin' was fashions to seek. 

Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell ; 
At his table-head he thought she'd look well ; 
M'Leish's ae daughter o' Claverse-ha' Lee, 
A pennyless lass wi' a lang pedigree. 

His wig was weel pouther'd, as guid as when 

new, 
His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue ; 
He put on a ring, — a sword, — and cock'd hat, — 
And wha' could refuse the Laird wi' a' that ? 

He took the grey mare and rade cannalie ; 
And rapp'd at the yett o' Claverse-ha' Lee : 
Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben : 
She's wanted to speak wi' the Laird o' Coekpen. 

Mistress Jean she was makin' the elder-flower 

wine : 
** And what brings the Laird at sic a like time ?" 
She put aff her apron, and on her silk gown. 
Her mutch wi' red ribbons, aud gaed awa' 

down. 

And when she cam' ben, he booed fu' low ; 
And what was his errand he soon let her know ; 
Amazed was the Laird, when the lady said Na', 
And wi' a laigh curtsie she tui-ned awa'. 

Dumbfounder'd he was, but nae sigh did he gie ; 
He mounted his mare, and rade caunilie : ' 
And often he thought, as he gaed thro' the glen. 
She's daft to refuse the Laird o' Coekpen. 

And now that the Laird his exit had made, 
Mistress Jean she reflected on what she had said : 
Oh for ane I'll get better, it's waur I'll get ten, 
I was daft to refuse the Laird o' Coekpen. 

Neist time that the Laird and the lady were seen, 
They were gaun arm in arm to the kirk on the 

green ; 
Now she sits in the Ha* like a weel-tappit hen ; 
But as yet there's nae chickens appeared at 

Coekpen. 



This beautiful song is in the true old Scotch 
taste, yet I do not know that either air or words 
were in print before. — Burns. 

Ca^ the ewes to the knowes, •> 

CcC them whare the heather grows, 
Co' them whare the hurnie roives, 
My bonnie dearie. 

As I gaed down the water-side, 

There I met my shepherd lad, 
He row'd me sweetly in his plaid, 

An' he ca'd me his dearie. 
Ca the ewes, 8fc. 

Will ye gang down the water-side. 
And see the waves sae sweetly glide. 

Beneath the hazels spreading wide. 
The moon it shines fu' clearly. 
Ca' the ewes, §*c. 

I was bred up at nae sic school, 
INIy shepherd lad, to play the fool, 

And a' the day to sit in dool, 
And naebody to see me. 
Ca' the ewes, §-c. 

Ye- sail get gowns and ribbons meet, 
Cauf-leather shoon upon your feet. 

And in my arms ye'se lie and sleep. 
And ye sail be my dearie. 
Ca' the ewes, Spc. 

If ye'U but stand to what ye've said, 
I'se gang wi' you my shepherd-lad. 

And ye may rowe me in your plaid. 
And I sail be your dearie. 
Ca' the ewes, 8fc. 

While waters wimple to the sea ; 

While day blinks in the lift sae hie ; 
'Till clay-cauld death sail bhn my e'e. 

Ye sail be my dearie.* 

Ca* the ewes, 8fc. 



LADIE MARY ANN. 

The starting verse should be restored ; — 
Burns. 

" Lady Mary Ann gaed out o* her bower, 
An' she found a bonnie rose new i' the flower ; 

As she kiss'd its ruddy lips drapping wi' dew, 
Quo' she, ye're nae sae sweet as my Charhe's 
mou." 



♦ Mrs. Bums informed the Editor that the last verse 
of this song was written by Bums. 



SONGS. 



147 



LADIE MARY ANN. 

O Lady Mary Ann looks o'er the castle wa', 
She saw three bonnie boys playing at the ba', 
The youngest he was the flower amang them a' ; 
My bonnie laddie's young, but he's growin' 
yet. 

** O father, O father, an' ye think it fit. 
We'll send him a j'ear to the college yet ; 
W'e'll sew a green ribbon round about his hat, 
And that will let them ken he's to marry yet." 

Lady Mary Ann was a flower in the dew, 
Sweet was its smell, and bonnie was its hue, 
And the langer it blossomed, the sweeter it grew ; 
For the lily in the bud will be bonnier yet. 

Young Charlie Cochran was the sprout of an 

aik, 
Bonnie, and blooming, and straight was its make, 
The sun took delight to shine for its sake. 
And it will be the brag o' the forest yet. 

The simmer is gane, when the leaves they were 
green ; 

And the days are awa that we hae seen ; 

But far better days, I trust, will come again, 
For my bonnie laddie's young, but he's grow- 
in' yet. 



KILLYCRANKY. 

The battle of Killycranky was the last stand 
made by the Clans for James, after his abdica- 
tion. Here Dundee fell in the moment of vie 
tory, and with him fell the hopes of the party. 
—General Mackay, when he found the High- 
landers did not pursue his flying army, said, 
** Dundee must be killed, or he never would 
have overlooked this advantage." — A great stone 
marks the spot where Dundee fell — Burns. 

Clavers and his highland-men. 

Came down upo' the raw, man, 
Who being stout, gave mony a clout, 

The lads began to claw, then. 
With sword and terge into their hand, 

Wi' which they were nae slaw, man, 
Wi' mony a fearful heavy sigh. 

The lads began to claw, then. 

O'er bush, o'er bank, o'er ditch, o'er stank, 

She flang amang them a', man ; 
The butter-box got mony knocks, 

Their riggings paid for a' then ; 
They got their paiks, wi' sudden straiks, 

Which to their grief they saw, man ; 
Wi' clinkum clankum o'er their crowns, 

The lads began to fa' then. 

Hur skipt about, hur leapt about, 
And flaag amang them a', man ; 



The English blades got broken heads, 
riieir crowns were cleav'd in twa then. 

The dark and door made their last hour, 
Aud prov'd their final fa, man ; 

They thought the devil had been there. 
That play'd them sic a paw then. 

The solemn league and covenant 

Came whigging up the hills, man, 
Thought highland trews durst not refuse 

For to subscribe their bills then : 
In Willie's name * they thought nae ane 

Durst stop their course at a', man ; 
But hur nane sell, wi' mony a knock, 

Cry'd, Furich-whiggs, awa', man. 

Sir Evan Du, and his men true. 

Came linking up the brink, man ; 
The Hogan Dutch they feared such, 

They bred a horrid stink, then. 
The true Maclean, and his fierce men, 

Came in amang them a', man ; 
Nane durst withstand his heavy hand, 

All fled and ran awa' then. 

O/i' on a ri, oh^ on a ri, 

Why should she lose king Shames, man ? 
O/i' riff in di, oh' rig in di, 

vShe shall break a' her banes then ; 
With furichinish, an' stay a while, 

And speak a word or twa, man. 
She's gi' a sti-aike, out o'er the neck, 

Before ye win awa' then, 

O fy for shame, ye're three for ane, 

Hur nane-sell's won the day, man ; 
King Shame's red-coats should be hung up. 

Because they ran awa' then : 
Had bent their brows, like highland trows. 

And made as lang a stay, man. 
They'd sav'd their king, that sacred thing. 

And Willie'd * run' awa' then. 



THE EWIE Wr THE CROOKIT HORN 

Another excellent song of old Skinner's.— 
Burns. 

Were I but able to rehearse 
My Ewie's praise in proper verse, 
I'd sound it forth as loud and fierce 

As ever piper's drone could blaw ; 
The Ewie wi' the crookit horn, 
Wha had kent her might hae sworn 
Sic a Ewe was never born, 

Hereabout nor far awa', 
Sic a Ewe was never born, 

Hereabout nor far awa'. 

I never needed tar nor keil 
To mark her upo' hip or heel. 



* Prince of Orange. 



148 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Her crookit horn did as weel 

To ken her by amo' them a' ; 
She never threaten'd scab nor rot, 
But keepit ay her ain jog trot, 
Baith to the fauld and to the coat, 

Was never sweir to lead nor caw, 
Baith to the fauld and to the coat, &c. 

Cauld nor hunger never dang her. 
Wind nor wet could never wrang her, 
Anes she lay an ouk and langer, 

Furth aneath a wreath o' snaw : 
Whan ither Ewies lap the dyke. 
And eat the kail for a' the tyke, 
]\Iy Ewle never play'd the like, 

But tyc'd about the barn wa' ; 
My Ewie never play'd the hke, &c. 

A better or a thriftier beast, 

Nae honest man could weel hae wist, 

For silly thing she never mist, 

To hae ilk year a lamb or twa' ; 
The first she had I gae to Jock, 
To be to him a kind o' stock, 
And now the laddie has a flock 

O' mair nor thirty head ava' ; 
And now the laddie has a flock, &c. 

I lookit aye at even' for her. 

Lest raischanter shou'd come o'er her, 

Or the fowmart might devour her, 

Gin the beastie bade awa ; 
My Ewie wi' the crookit horn. 
Well deserv'd baith girse and corn, 
Sic a Ewe was never born, 

Here-about nor far awa. 
Sic a Ewe was never born, &c. 

Yet last ouk, for a' my keeping, 
(Wha can speak it without weeping ?) 
A villain cam when I was sleeping, 

Sta' ray Ewie, horn and a' ; 
I sought her sair upo' the morn, 
And down aneath a buss o' thorn 
I got my Ewie's crookit horn. 

But my Ewie was awa'. 
I got my Ewie's crookit horn, &c. 

! gin I had the loun that did it, 
Sworn I have as well as said it, 
Tho' a' the warld should forbid it, 

I wad gie his neck a thra' : 

1 never met wi' sic a turn, 
As this sin ever I was born, 
My Ewie wi' the crookit horn, 

Silly Ewie stown awa'. 
My Ewie wi' the crookit horn, &c. 

O ! had she died o' crook or cauld, 
As Ewies do when they grow auld, 
It wad nae been, by niony fauld, 

Sae sare a heart to nane o's a' : 
For a' the claith that we hae worn, 
Frae her and her's sae aften shorn, 



The loss o' her we cou'd hae bom, 

Had fair strae-death ta'en her awa*. 
The loss o' her we cou'd hae born, &c. 

But thus, poor thing, to lose her life, 
Aneath a bleedy villain's knife, 
T'm really fley't that our guidwife 

Will never win aboon't ava : 
O ! a' ye bards benorth Kinghorn, 
Call your muses up and mourn, 
Our Ewie wi' the crookit horn, 

Stown frae's, and fellt and a' ! 
Our Ewie wi' the crookit horn, &c. 



ANDRO Wr HIS CUTTIE GUN. 



mour and convivial merriment, is an intimate 
favourite at JBridal Trystes, and House-heat- 
ings. It contains a spirited picture of a country 
ale-house touched oflF with all the hghtsome gaiety 
so peculiar to the rural muse of Caledonia, when 
at a fair. 

Instead of the line, 

" Girdle cakes weel toasted brown," 

I have heard it sung, 

" Knuckled cakes weel brandert brown." 

These cakes are kneaded out with the knuckles, 
and toasted over the red embers of wood on a 
gridiron. They are remarkably fine, and have 
a deUcate relish when eaten warm with ale. 
Ou winter market nights the landlady heats 
them, and drops them into the quaigh to warm 
the ale : 



Weel does the cannie Kimmer ken 
To gar the swats gae glibber down.' 



Burns. 



BLYTH WAS SHE 

Blyth, blyth, blyth was she, 

Blyth was she butt and ben ; 
And weel she loo'd a Hawick gill, 

And leiigh to see a tappit hen. 
She took nie in, and set me down. 

And heght to keep me lawing-free ; 
But, cunning carling that she was, 

She gart me birle my bawbie. 

We loo'd the liquor well enough ; 

But waes my heart my cash was done 
Before that I had queuch'd my drowth. 

And laitli I was to pawn my shoon. 
Wlieu we had three times toom'd our stoup, 

And the niest chappin new begun, 
Wha started in to heezc our hope, 

But Andro' wi' his cutty gun. 



SONGS. 



149 



The carling brought her kebbuck ben, 

With girdle-cakes weel-toasted brown, 
Well does the canny kimraer ken, 

They gar the swats gae glibber down. 
We ra'd the bicker aft about ; 

Till dawAiing we ne'er jee'd our bun, 
And ay the cleanest drinker out 

Was Andro' wi' his cutty gun. 

He did like ony mavis sing, 

And as I in his oxter sat, 
He ca'd uie ay his bonny thing, 

And mony a sappy kiss I gat : 
I hae been east, I hae been west, 

I hae been far ayont the sun ; 
But the blythest lad that e'er I saw 

Was Andro wi' his cutty gun ! 



HUGHIE GRAHAM. 

There are several editions of this ballad. — 
This, here inserted, is from oral tradition in 
Ayrshire, where, when T was a boy, it was a 
popular song. — It originally, had a simple old 
tune, which I have forgotten. — Burns. 

Our lords are to the mountains gane, 

A hunting o' the fallow deer, 
And they have gripet Hughie Graham 

For stealing o' the bishop's mare. 

And they have tied him hand and foot, 
And led him up, thro' Stilling town ; 

The lads and lasses met him there, 

Cried, Hughie Graham thou'rt a loun. 

O lowse my right hand free, he says, 
And put my braid sword in the same ; 

He's no in Stirhng town this day, 
Dare tell the tale to Hughie Graham. 

Up then bespake the brave Whitefoord, 

As he sat by the bishop's knee. 
Five hundred white stots I'll gie you 

If ye'll let Hughie Graham free. 

O baud your tongue, the bishop says, 

And wi* your pleading let me be ; 
For tho' ten Grahams were in his coat, 

Hughie Graham this day shall die. 

Up then bespake the fair Whitefoord, 

As she sat by the bishop's knee ; 
Five hundred white pence I'll gie you, 

If ye'll gie Hughie Graham to me. 

O hand your tongue now lady fair, 

And wi' your pleading let it be ; 
Altho' ten Grahams were in his coat, 

Its for my honor he maun die. 



They've ta'en him to the gallows knowe, 

He lo(»ked to the gallows tree. 
Yet never colour left his cheek, 

Nor ever did he blink his ee. 

At length he looked round about, 

To see whatever he could spy : 
And there he saw his auld father, 

And he was weeping bitterly. 

O hand your tongue, my father dear, 
And wi' your weeping let it be ; 

Thy weeping's sairer on ray heart. 
Than a' that they can do to me. 

And ye may gie my brother John, 

My sword that's bent in the middle clear, 

And let him come at twelve o'clock. 
And see me pay the bishop's mare. 

And ye may gie my brother James 

My sword thit's bent in the middle browtj. 

And bid him come at four o'clock, 
And see his brother Hugh cut down. 

Remember me to Maggy my wife. 

The niest time ye gang o'er the moor. 

Tell her she staw the bishop's mare. 
Tell her she was the bishop's whore. 

And ye may tell my kith and kin, 
I never did disgi-ace their blood ; 

And when they meet the bishop's cloak. 
To mak it shorter by the hood. 



LORD RONALD, MY SON. 

This air, a very favourite one in Ayrshire, 
is evidently the original of Lochaber. In this 
manner most of our finest more modern airs have 
had their origin. Some early minstrel, or mu- 
sical shepherd, composed the simple artless ori- 
ginal air, which being picked up by the more 
learned musician, took the improved for tim 
bears. — Burns. 

The name is commonly sounded Ronald, or 
Randal. 



Where have ye been hunting, 

Lord Randal, my son ? 
Where have ye been hunting. 

My handsome young man ? 
In yon wild wood. Oh mother, 

So make my bed soon : 
For I'm wae, and I'm weary. 

And fain would lie down. 



Where gat ye your dinner, 
Lord Randal, my son ? 

Where gat ye your dinner, 
My handsome young man ? 



150 



BURNS' WORKS. 



O, I dined with my true love, 

So make my bed soon : 
For I'm wae, and I'm wear)', 

And fain would lie down. 

O, what was your dinner, 

Lord Randal, my son ? 
O, what was your dinner, 

My handsome young man ? 
Eels boiled in broo, mother ; 

So make my bed soon : 
For I'm wae, and I'm weary, 

And fain would lie down. 

O, where did she find them, 

Lord Randal, my son ? 
O, where did she catch them, 

My handsome young man ? 
'Neath the bush of brown brekan, 

So make my bed soon : 
For Tm wae, and I'm weary 

And fain would lie down. 

Now, where are your bloodhounds, 

Lord Randal, my sou ? 
What came of your bloodhounds, 

My handsome young man ? 
They swelled and died, mother. 

And sae maun I soon : 
O, I am wae, and I'm weary, 

And fain would lie down. 

I fear you are poisoned, 

Lord Randal, my son ! 
I fear you are poisoned. 

My handsome young man ! 

yes I am poisoned, — 
So make my bed soon : 

1 am sick, sick at heart. 

And I now must lie down. 



LOGAN BRAES. 

There were two old songs to this tune ; one 
of them contained some striking lines, the other 
entered into the sweets of wooing rather too 
freely for modern poetry. — It began, 

*' Ae simmer night on Logan braes, 

I helped a bonnie lassie on wi' her claes, 
First wi' her stockins, an' syne wi' her shoon, 
But she gied me the glaiks when a' was done." 

The other seems older, but it is not so charac- 
teristic of Scottish courtship. 

" Logan Water's wide and deep. 
An' laith am I to weet my feet ; 
But gif ye '11 consent to gang wi' me, 
I'll hire ahorse to carry thee." 

Burns. 



ANOTHER SET. 

LOGAN WATER. 

BY JOHN MAYNE. 

By Logan's streams that rin sae deep, 
Fu' aft', wi' glee, I've herded sheep, 
I've herded sheep, or gather 'd slaes, 
Wi' my dear lad, on Logan Braes : 
But, wae's my heart, thae days are gane, 
And, fu' o' grief, I herd my lane ; 
Whi le my dear lad maun face his faes, 
Far , far fr-ae me and Logan Braes ! 

Nae mair at Logan Kirk will he, 
Atween the preachiiigs, meet wi' me — 
INIeet wi' me, or, when it's mirk. 
Convoy me hame frae Logan Kirk ! 

weil may sing, thae days are gane — 
Frae Kirk and Fair I come my lane. 
While my dear lad maun face his faes. 
Far, far frae me and Logan Braes ! 



O'ER THE MOOR AMANG THE 
HEATHER. 

This song is the composition of a Jean Glover, 
a girl who was not only a w — e, but also a thief; 
and in one or other character has visited most 
of the Correction Houses in the West.— She 
was born, I believe, in Kilmarnock : — I took 
the song down from her singing as she was 
strolling through the country, with a slight-of- 
hand blackguard. — Burns. 

Comin' thro' the Craigs o' Kyle, 
Amang the bonnie blooming heather. 
There I met a bonnie lassie, 
Keeping a' her yowes thegither. 

O'er the moor amang the heather. 

O'er the moor amang the heather, 

There I met a honnie lassie. 

Keeping a' her yowes thegither. 

Says I, my dearie, where is thy hame, 
In moor or dale, pray tell me whether ? 
She says, I tent the fleecy flocks 
That feed amang the blooming heather, 
O'er the moor, 8^c. 

We laid us down upon a bank, 
Sae warm and sunny was the weather. 
She left her flocks at large to rove 
Amang the bonuie blooming heather. 

O'er the moor, §*c. 

While thus we lay she sang a sang. 
Till echo rang a mile and farther. 
And ay the burden o' the sang 
Was — o'er the moor amang the heather. 
O'er the jnoor, Sfc. 



SONGS. 



151 



She charm'd my heart, and aye siusyne, 
I could na think on any ither : 
By sea and sky she shall be mine ! 
The bonnie lass amang the heather. 

O'er the moor, §'c. 



BONNIE DUNDEE. 

vvHARE gat ye that hauver-meal bannock, 
O silly blind bodie, O dinna ye see ! 

1 got it frae a sodger laddie. 

Between Saint Johnstone and bonnie Dundee. 
O gin I saw the laddie that gae me't ! 

Aft has he doudl'd me on his knee: 
May heav'n protect my bonnie Scotch laddie. 

And sen* him safe hame to his babie and me ! 

May blessins light on thy sweet, we lippie ! 

May blessins light on thy bonnie ee-bree ! 
Thou smiles sae like my sodger laddie, 

Thou's dearer, dearer ay to me ! 
But I'll big a bow'r on yon bonnie banks, 

Whare Tay rins wimplan by sae clear ; 
An' ill deed thee in the tartan fine, 

An' mak thee a man like thy daddie dear ! 

OLD VERSE. 

Ye're like to the timmer o' yon rotten wood, 
Ye're like to the bark o' yon rotten tree, 

Ye slip frae me like a knotless thread, 

Aa' ye'll crack your credit wi' mae than me. 



DONOCHT-HEAD. 

Tune—" Gordon Castle." 

Kfen blaws the wind o'er Donocht-Head,* 

The snaw drives snelly thro' the dale, 
The Gaberlunzie tirls my sneck, 

And shivering tells his waefu' tale. 
" CauJd is the night, O let me in, 

*' And dinna let your minstrel fa', 
" And dinna let his windin-shcet 

" Be naething but a wreath o' snaw ! 

" Full ninety winters hae I seen, 

" And pip'd where gor-cocks whirring flew, 
" And mony a day ye've danc'd, I ween, 

" To lilts which frae my drone I blew." 
JMy Eppie wak'd, and soon she cry'd, 

" Get up, Guidmau, and let him in; 
" For weel ye ken the winter night 

" Was short when he began his din." 

My Epple's voice, O wow it's sweet '■ 
E'en tho' she bans and scaulds awee ; 

But when it's tun'd to sorrow's tale, 
O haith, it's doubly dear to me ! 

* A mountain in the Nortl;. 



Come iu, auld Carl ! I'll ste^r my fire, 
I'll mak it bleeze a bonnie flame ; 

Your bludo is thin, ye've tint the gate, 
Ye should na stray sae far frae hame. 

" Nae hame have I," the minstrel said, 
" Sad party strife o'erturn'd my ha' ; 

" And, weeping at the eve o' life, 
'* I wander thro' a wreath o' snav^.* 



THE BANKS OF THE TWEED. 

This song is one of the many attempts that 
English composei's have made to imitate the 
Scottish manner, and which I shall, in these 
strictures, beg leave to distinguish by the appel- 
lation of Anglo- Scottish productions. The mu- 
sic is pretty good, but the verses are just above 
contempt. — Burns. 



I left the sweet banks of the deep flowing 
Tweed, 

And my own little cot by the wild wood, 
When Fanny was sporting through valley and 
mead, 

In the beautiful morning of childhood. 
And oftimes alone, by the wave-beaten shore, 

When the billows of twilight were flowing, 
I thought, as I mus'd on the days that were o'er, 

How the rose on her cheek would be blowing. 

I came to the banks of the deep flowing Tweed, 

And mine own little cot by the wild wood. 
When o'er me ten summers had gather'd their 
speed, 

And Fanny had pass'd from her childhood. 
I found her as fair as my fancy could dream, 

Not a bud of her loveliness blighted. 
And I wish'd I had ne'er seen her beauty's soft 
beam, 

Or that we were for ever united. 



THE FLOWERS OF EDINBURGH. 

This Song is one of the many efi"usions of 
Scots jacobitism — The title. Flowers of Edin- 
burgh, has no manner of connexion with the 
present verses, so I suspect there has been an 
older set of words, of which the title is all that 
remains. 



* This affecting poem was long attributeil to Burns. 
He thus remarks on it. " Donocht-Head is not mine : 
1 would give ten pounds it were. It appeared first in 
the Edniburgh Herald ; and came to the editor of that 
paper with the Newcastle post-mark on it." It was 
the composition of William Pickering, a north of 
Hiigl.ind poet, who is not known to have written any 
thiny more. 



152 



BURNS' WORKS. 



By the bye, it is singular enough that the 

Scottish Muses were all Jacobites 1 have paid 

more attention to every description of Scots 
songs than perhaps any body living has done, 
and I do not recollect one single stanza, or even 
the title of the most trifling Scots air, which 
has the least panegyrical reference to the fami- 
lies of Nassau or Brunswick ; while there are 
hundreds satirizing them. This may be thought 
no panegyric on the Scots Poets, but I mean it 
as such. For myself, I would always take it as 
a compliment to have it said, that my heart ran 
before my head ; and surely the gallant though 
unfortunate house of Stuart, the kings of our 
fathers for so many heroic ages, is a theme 
much more interesting than * * * *. — 
Burns. 

My love was once a bonny lad, 

He was the flower of all his kin. 
The absence of his bonny face 

Has rent my tender heart in twain. 
I day nor night find no delight. 

In silent tears I still complain ; 
And exclaim 'gainst those my rival foes, 

That ha'e ta'en from me my darling swain. 

Despair and anguish fills my breast. 

Since I have lost my blooming rose j 
I sigh and moan while others rest. 

His absence yields me no repose. 
To seek my love I'll range and rove. 

Thro' every grove and distant plain ; 
Thus I'll ne'er cease, but spend my days, 

To hear tidings from my darling swain. 

There's naething strange in Nature's change. 

Since parents shew such cruelty ; 
They caus'd my love from me to range, 

And knows not to what destiny. 
The pretty kids and tender lambs 

May cease to sport upon the plain ; 
But I'll mourn and lament in deep discontent 

For the absence of my darling swain. 

Kind Neptune, let me thee entreat, 

To send a fair and pleasant gale ; 
Ye dolphins sweet, upon me wait, 

And convey me on your taU ; 
Heavens bless my voyage with success. 

While crossing of the raging main, 
And send me safe o'er to that distant shore. 

To meet my lovely darling swain. 

All joy and mirth at our return 

Shall then abound from Tweed to Tay ; 
The bells shall ring and sweet birds sing. 

To grace and crown our nuptial day. 
Thus bless'd wi* charms in my love's arms, 

My heart once more I will regain ; 
Then I'll range no more to a distant shore. 

But in love will enjoy my darling swain. 



CHARLIE, HE'S MY DARLING. 

OLD VERSKS. 

Tu7ie — " Charlie is my darling." 

'TwAs on a Monday morning, 

Richt early in the year. 
That Charlie cam to our toun. 
The young Chevalier. 

And Charlie hes my darling. 

My darling, my darling ; 
Charlie he's my darling. 
The young Chevalier. 

As he was walking up the street. 

The city for to view, 
O there he spied a bonnie lass, 

The window looking through. 
And Charlie, 8fe. 

Sae licht's he jumped up the stair, 

And tirled at the pin ; 
And wha sae ready as hersell. 

To let the laddie in ! 

And Charlie, 8fc. 

He set his Jenny on his knee. 

All in his Highland dress ; 
For biavvly weel he kenned the way 

To please a bonnie lass. 

And Charlie, Sfc. 

It's up yon heathy mountain, 

And down yon scrog^^y glen. 
We daurna gang a- milking, 

For Charhe and his men. 
And Charlie, Sfc 



THE SOUTERS OF SELKIRK. 

Uf with the souters of Selkirk, 

And down with the Earl of Home ! 

And up wi' a' the brave lads, 
Wha sew the single-soled shoon ! 

O ! fye upon yellow and yellow. 
And fye upon yellow and green ; 

And up wi' the true blu"? and scarlet, 
And up wi' the single-soled shoou ! 

Up wi* the souters of Selkirk — 

Up wi' the lingle and last ! 
There's fame wi' the days that's coming. 

And glory wi' them that are past. 

Up wi' the souters of Selkirk — 
Lads that are trusty and leal ; 

And up with the men of the Forest, 
And down wi' the Merse to the deil .' 

O ! mitres are made for noddles. 
But feet they are made for shoou ; 



i 



SONGS. 



153 



And fame is as sib to Selkirk 
As light is true to the moon. 

There sits a souter in Selkirk, 

Wha sings as he drAws his thiead — 
There's g:allant soutors in Selkirk 



CRAIL TOITN.* 

" Tune—" Sir John Malcolm." 

And was ye e'er in Crail toun ? 

Igo and ago ; 
And saw ye there Clerk Dishington ? f 

Sing ii'om, igon, ago. 

His wig was like a doukit hen, 

Igo and ago ; 
The tail o't hke a goose -pen, 

Sing ironi, igon, ago. 

And dJnna ye ken Sir John Malcolm ? 

Igo and ago ; 
Gin he's a wise man I niistak him. 

Sing irom, igon, ago. 

And hand ye weel frae Sandie Don, 

Igo and ago ; 
He's ten times dafter nor Sir John, 

Sing irom, igon, ago. 

To hear them o' their travels talk, 

Igo and ago ; .^. • 
To gae to London's but a walk, 

Sing irom, igon, ago. 

To see the wonders o' the deep, 

Igo and ago, 
Wad gar a man baith wail and weep, 

Sing irom, igon, ago. 

To see the leviathan skip, 

Igo and ago, 
And wi' his tail ding ower a ship. 

Sing irom, igon, ago. 



* There is a somewhat different version of this 
strange song in Herd's Collection, 177<). The present, 
which 1 thmk the best, is copied from the Scottish 
Minstrel. 

t The person known in Scottish son;; and tradition 
by the epithet Clerk Dishington, was a notary who re- 
sided about the middle of the last century in Crail, 
and acted as the town-clerk of that ancient burgh. I 
have been informed that he was a person of great l(wal 
celebrity in his time, as an uncompromising humour- 
ist. 



MY ONLY JO AND DEARIE, O. 

GALL.* 

Tune—" My only jo and dearie, O." 

Thy cheek is o' the rose's hue, 

IMy only jo and dearie, O ; 
Thy neck i» o' the siller dew, 

llpou the hank sae briery, O. 
Tliy rcefh are o' the ivory, 

sweet's the twinkle o' thine ee : 
Nae joy, nae pleasure blinks on me, 

iMy only jo and dearie, O. 

Wlien we were bairnies on yon brae, 
And youth was blinkiu' bonuie, O, 

Aft we wad daff the lee lang day, 
Our joys iu' sweet and mouie, O. 

Aft I wad chase thee ower the lee, 

And round about the thorny tree ; 

Or pu' the wild llow'rs a' for thee, 
IVIy only jo and dearie, O. 

1 hae a wish I canua tine, 

.'Mang a' the cares that grieve me, O ; 
A wish that thou wert ever mine. 

And never niair to leave me, O ; 
Then I wad daut thee nicht and day, 
Nae ither warldly care I'd hae. 
Till hfe's warm stream forgat to play. 

My only jo and deaiie, O. 



FAIRLY SHOT O* HER. 

Tune—'" Fairly shot o' her," 

O yin I ivere fairly shot o' herf 

Fairly, fairly, fairly shot o' her ! 

O gin I were fairly shot d her ! 

If she were dead, I wad dance on the top o' her! 

Till we were married, I couldna see licht till 

her ; 
For a month after, a' thing aye gaed richt wi' 

her : 
But these ten years I hae prayed for a wright 

to her — 
O gin I were fairly shot o' her ! 

O gin I were fairly shot o' her ! §-c. 

Nane o' her relations or friends could stay wi' 

her : 
The necbours and bairns are fain to flee frae her : 
And I my ainsell am forced to gie way till her : 
O gin I vv'ere fairly shot o' her ! 

O gin I were fairly shut o' Iter ! §-c. 

Sl'.e gangs aye sae braw, she's sae muckle pride 

in her ; 
Tlieie's no a gudewife in the haill country-siuc 

like her ; 



* Richard Gall, the son of a dealer in old furniture 
in St. Mary's VVynd, Edinburgh, was brought up \iy 
the business of a printer, and died at an early age 
about the beginning ot the present century. 

40 



154 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Wi* dress and wi' drink, the deil wadna bide wi' 

her: 
O gin I were fauly shot o' her ! 

O gin I were fairly shot o' her ! §*c. 

If the time were but come that to the kirk-gate 

wi' her, 
And into the yird I'd mak mysell quit o' her, 
I'd then be as blythe as first when I met wi' 

her: 
O gin I were fairly shot o' her ! 

O gin I were fairly shot o' her I ^c. 



FALSE LUVE ! AND HAE YE PLAY'D 
ME THIS. 

False luve ! and hae ye play'd me this, 

In summer, 'mid the flowers ? 
I shall repay ye back again 

In winter, 'mid the showers. 

But again, dear luve, and again, dear luve, 

Will ye not turn again ? 
As ye look to other women 

Shall I to other men ?* 



FARE YE WEEL, MY AULD WIFE. 

And fare ye weel, my auld wife ; 

Sing bum, bee, berry, bum ; 
Fare ye weel, my auld wife ; 

Sing bum, bum, bum. 
Fare ye weel, my auld wife, 
The steerer up o* sturt and strife, 
The maut 's abune the meal the nicht, 

Wi' some, some, some. 

And fare ye weel, my plke-staflF ; 

Sing bum, bee, berry, bum : 
Fare ye weel, my pike-staff; 

Sing bum, bum, bum. 
Fare ye weel, my pike-staff, 
Wi' you nae mair my wife I'll baff ; 
The maut's abune the meal the nicht, 

Wi* some, some, some. 



GET UP AND BAR THE DOOR. 

It fell about the Martinmas time. 
And a gay time it was than. 



* From Herd's Collection, 1776.— A slightly difffer. 
ent version is put by Sir Walter Scott into the mouth 
of Davie Gellatley, in tlie celebrated novel of Waver 
ley:— 

" False love, and hast thou play'd me this, 

In summer, among the flowers^ 
I will repay thee back again 
In winter, among the showers. 

" Unless again, again, my love. 

Unless you turn again. 
As you with other maidens rove, 

I'll smile on other men." 



When our gudewife had puddins to mak. 
And she boil'd them in the pan. 
And the barrin o' our door weil, weil, weily 
And the barrin' o' our door taeil. 

The wind blew cauld frae south to north, 

It blew into the floor ; 
Says our guderaan to our gudewife. 

Get up and bar the door. 
A?id the barrih'y S^c. 

My hand is in my hussyfe skep, 

Gudeman, as ye may see ; 
An it shouldna be barr'd this hutmer year, 

It's no be barr'd for me. 
And the barrin, 8fe. 

They made a paction 'tween them twa. 

They made it firm and sure, 
The first that spak the foremost word 

Should rise and bar the door. 
And the barrin\ 8fc. 

Then by there came twa gentlemen, 

At twelve o'clock at night ; 
And they could neither see house nor ha', 

Nor coal nor candle-licht. 
And the barring §*c. 

Now whether is this a rich man's house. 

Or whether is this a puir ? 
But never a word wad ane o' them speak, 

For the barrin* o' the door. 
And the barrin', Sfc. 

And first they ate the white puddins, 

And syne they ate the black ; 
And muckle thocht our gudewife to hersell, 

But never a word she spak. 
And the barring §"c. 

Then said the tane unto the tother, 

Hae, man, take ye my knife, 
Do ye tak aff the auld man's beard, 

And I'll kiss the gudewife. 
And the barrin% &fc. 

But there's nae water in the house. 

And what shall we do than? 
What ails ye at the puddin' broo. 

That boils into the pan ? 
And the barrin', 8fc. 

O, up then startit our gudeman. 

And an angry man was he : 
Wad ye kiss my wife before my face. 

And scaud me wi' puddin' bree ? 
And the barrin', 8fc. 

Then up and startit our gudewife, 

Gi'ed three skips on the floor : 
Gudeman, ye've spoken the foremost word. 

Get up and bar the door.* 
And the barrin'. Sec. 



* From Herd's Collection, 1776.— Tradition, as re. 
ported in Johnson's Musical Museum, ailinns that the 



SONGS. 



155 



LOGTE O' BUCHAN. 

Tune — " Logic o' Buchan." 

O, Log IE o' Buchan, O, Logie, the laird, 
They hae ta'en awa Jamie that delved in the 

\ard ; 
He play'd on the pipe and the viol sae sma' ; 
They hae ta'en awa Jamie, the flower o' them a'. 
He said. Think na Jang, lassie, though I 

gang awa ; 
He said. Think na lang, lassie, though I 

gang awa ; 
For the simmer is coining, cauld winter's 

awa. 
And ril come hack and see thee in spite o' 
them a\ 

O, Sandie has owsen, and siller, and kye, 
A house and a haddin, and a' things forhye, 
But I wad hae Jamie, wig bonnet in's hand, 
Before I'd hae Sandy wi' nouses and land. 
He said, 8fc. 

My daddie looks sulky, my minnie looks sour, 
They frown upon Jamie, because he is poor ; 
But daddie and minnie although that they be. 
There's nane o' them a' like my Jamie to me. 
He said, 8fc. 

I sit on my creepie, and spin at my wheel. 
And think on the laddie that lo'ed me sae weel ; 
He had but ae sixpence — he brak it in twa. 
And he gi'ed me the hauf o't when he gaed awa. 
Then, haste ye back, Jamie, and hide na awa, 
Then haste ye hack, Jamie, and hide na awa ; 
Simmer is comin , cauld tvinfer's awa, 
And yell come and see me in spite o' theyn 
a'* 



" gudeman" of this song was a person of the name of 
John Blunt, who hved of yore in Crawford-Muir. 
T{^re are two tunes to which it is often sunc;. One of 
them is in most of tiie Collections of Scottish Tunes ; 
the other, tliough to appearance ecjually ancient, seems 
to have been preserved by tradition alone, as we have 
never seen it in print A third tune, to which we have 
heard this song sung, by only one person, an American 
student, we suspect to have been imported from his 
own country. 

* "Logie o' Buchan" is stated by Mr. Peter Buchan 
of Peterhead, in his Gleanings of Scarce Old Ballads 
(18ii7), to have been the composition of Mr. Geor<je 
Halket, and to have been written by hnn while school- 
master of Rathen, in Aberdeenshire, about the year 
1756. " The poetry of this individual," says 'Mr. 
Buchan, " was chiefly Jacobitical, and long remained 
familiar amongst the peasantry in tJiat quarter of the 
country : One of the best known of tliese, at the j)re- 
sent, is ' Wherry, Whigs, awa, man!' In 174(J, Mr. 
Halket wrote a dialogue betwixt George II. and the 
Devil, which falling into the hands of the Duke of 
Cumbeiland while on his mardi to Culloden, he of- 
fered one hundred pounds reward for the person or 
the head of its author. Mr. Halket died in 1756. 

'« The Logie here mentioned, is in one of the ad- 
joining parishes (Cramond) where Mr. Halket then 
resided ; and the hero of the piece was a James Ro- 
bertson, gardener at the place of Logie." 



HERE'S A HEALTH TO THEM THAT'S 
AWA. 

Tune—" Here's a health to them thafs awa." 

Hbre's a health to them that's awa, 
Here's a health to them that's awa ; 

Here's a health to them that were here short 
syne, 
And canna be here the day. 

It's gude to be merry and wise ; 

It's gude to be honest and true ; 
It's gude to be art" wi' the auld love, 

Before ye be on wi' the new. 



HEY, CA' THROUGH. 

Tune — " Hey, ca' through." 

I'P wi' the carles o' Dysart, 

And the lads o' Buckhaven, 
And the kirnmers o' Largo, 
And the lasses o' Leven. 

Hey, ca' through, ca' through, 

For we hae muckle ado : 
Hey, ca' through, ca through. 
For xce hae muckle ado. 

We hae tales to tell. 

And we hae sangs to sing ; 
We hae pennies so spend. 

And we hae pints to bring. 

Hey, ca' through, 6fC. 

We'll live a' our days ; 

And them that comes behin', 
Let them do the like. 

And spend the gear they win. 

Hey, ca! through, SfC. 



I LO'ED NE'ER A LADDIE BUT ANE, 



Tune—" My lodging is on the cold ground." 

I lo'ed ne'er a laddie but ane ; 

He lo'ed ne'er a lassie but me ; 
He's willing to mak me his ain ; 

And his ain I am willing to be. 
He has coft me a rokelay o' blue. 

And a pair o' mittens o' green ; 
The price was a kiss o' mv mou' ; 

And I paid him the debt yestreen. 

Let ithers brag weel o' their gear, 

Their land, and their lordly degree ; 
I carena for ought but my dear. 

For he's ilka thing lordly to me : 
His words are sae sugar'd, sae sweet ! 

His sense drives ilk fear far awa ! 
I listen — poor fool ! and I greet ; 

Yet how sweet arc the tears as they fa* [ , 



15() 



BURNS' WORKS. 



AYE WAUKING, O. 

THE ORIGINAL SONG, FROM RECITATION. 

I'm wet, wet, 
O I'm wet and weary ! 

Yet fain wad I rise and rin, 

If I thought I would meet my deary. 
Ay wauking, O ! 

Wauking aye, and weary. 
Sleep I can get nane 

For thinking o' my deary. 

Simmer's a pleasant time. 

Flowers of every colour. 
The water rins ower the heugh — 

And I lang for my true lover. 
Ay wauking, 8fe, 

When I sleep I dream, 

When I v/auk I'm eerie ; 
Sleep I can get nane 

For thinking o' my deary. 

Ay wauking, Sfc. 

Lanely night comes on ; 
A' the lave are sleeping ; 

1 think on my love. 

And blear my een wi' greeting. 
Ay wauking, 8fc. 

Feather-beds are soft. 

Painted rooms are bonnie ; 
But a kiss o' my dear love 

Is better far than ony. 

Ay wauking, §'c. 



KELVIN GROVE. 

JOHN LYLE. 

Tune—" Kelvin Grove." 

Let us haste to Kelvin grove, bonnie lassie, O ; 
Through its mazes let us rove, bonnie lassie, O ; 

Where the rose in all its pride 

Decks the hollow dingle's side, 
Whei'e the miduight fairies glide, bonnie lassie, O. 

We will wander by the mill, bonnie lassie, O, 
To the cove beside the rill, bonnie lassie, O ; 

Where the glens rebound the call 

Of the lofty waterfall, 
Through the mountain's rocky hall, bonnie 
lissie, O. 

Then we'll up to yonder glade, bonnie lassie, O, 
Where so oft, beneath its shade, bonnie lassie, O, 

With the songsters in the grove, 

We have told our tale of love. 
And have sportive garlaudswove, bonule lassie, O. 

Ah I I soon must bid adieti, bonnie lassie, O, 
To this f.iiry scene and yon, boniiii! lassie, O, 



To tlie streamlet winding clear, 
To the fragrant-scented brier, 
E'en to thee of all most dear, bonnie lassie, O. 

For the frowns of fortune low'r, bonnie lassie, O, 
On thy lover at this hour, bonnie lassie, O : 
Ere the golden orb of day, 
Wakes the warblers from the spray, 
From this land I must away, bonnie lassie, O. 

And when on a distant shore, bonnie lassie, O, 
Should I fall 'midst battle's roar, bonnie lassie, O, 

Wilt thou, Helen, when you hear 

Of thy lover on his bier. 
To his memory shed a tear, bonnie lassie? O.* 



BLUE BONNETS OVER THE BORDER. 

SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

Tune—" Blue Bonnets over the Border." 

March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale, 

Why, my lads, dinna ye march forward In 
order ? 
JNIarch, march, Eskdalc and Liddesdale ; 

All the blue bonnets are over the Border. 
Many a banner spread flutters above your head ; 

Many a crest that is famous in story . 
Mount and make ready, then, sons of the moun- 
tain glen ; 
Fight for your Queen and the old Scottish 
glory. 

Come fi-om the hills where your hirscls are graz- 
ing; 

Come from the glen of the buck and the roe ; 
Come to the crag where the beacon is blazing ; 

Come with the buckler, the lance, and the bow. 
Trumpets are sounding, war steeds are bounding ; 

Stand to your arms, and march in good order. 
England shall many a day tell of the bloody fray. 

When the blue bonnets came over the Border^. 



COMIN' THROUGH THE RYE. 

Tune — " Gin a Body meet a Body. 

Gin a body meet a body 

Comiu' through the rye. 
Gin a body kiss a body, 

Need a body cry ? 
Ev'ry lassie has her laddie, 

Nane, they say, hae I ! 
Yet a' the lads they smile at me. 

When comin' through the rye. 
Amang the train there is a swain 

I dciuly lo'e mysell ; 
But whaur his hame, or what his name, 
I dinna care to tell. 



* Kelvin Grove is a beautifully wooded dell, about 
two miles from Glasgow, forming a sort of lovers' walk 
for tlie lads and lasses of that city. 



SONGS. 



45,7 



Gin a body meet a body, 

Coniiu' frae the town, 
Gin a body greet a body, 
*^^ Need a body frown ? 
Ev'ry lassie has her laddie, 

Nanc, they say, hae I ! 
Yet a' the lads they smile at me. 
When comin' through the rye. 
Amang the train there is a swain 

I dearly lo'e niysell ; 
But Avhaur his hame, or what his name, 
I dinna care to tell. 



DINNA THINK, BONNIE LASSIE. 

Tune — " The Smith's a gallant fireman." 

O DINNA think, bonnic lassie, I'm gaun to 

leave thee ; 
Dinna think, bonnie lassie, I'm gaun to leave 

thee ; 
Dinna think, bonnie lassie, I'm gaim to leave 

thee ; 
I'll tak a stick into my hand, and come again 

and see thee. 

Far's the gate ye hae to gang ; dark's the 

night and eerie ; 
Par's the gate ye hae to gang ; dark's the 

night and eerie ; 
Far's the gate ye hae to gang; dark's the 

night and eerie ; 
O stay this night wi' your love, and dinna 

gang and leave me. 
It's but a night and hauf a day that I'll leave 

my dearie ; 
But a night and hauf a day that I'll leave my 

dearie ; 
But a night and hauf a day that I'll leave my 

dearie ; 
Whene'er the sun gaes west the loch I'll 

<?ome again and see thee. 
Dinna gang, my bonnie lad, dinna gang and 

leave me ; 
Dinna gang, my bonnie lad, dinna gang and 

l6ave me ; 
When a' the lave arc sound asleep, I'm dull 

and eerie ; 
And a' the Ice-lang nig-ht I 'm sad, wi* think- 
ing on my dearie. 
O dinna think, bonnie lassie, I'm gaun to 

leave thee ; 
Dinna think, bonnie lassie, I'm gaun to leave 

thee ; 
Dmna think, bonnie lassie, I'm gaun to leave 

thee ; 
When e'er the s\m gaes out o' sight, I'll come 

again and see thee. 
Waves are rising o'er the sea ; winds blaw 

loud and fear me ; 
Waves are rising o'er the sea ; winds blaw 

loud and fear nie. 



While the winds and waves do roar, I atn 

wae and dreary ; 
And gin ye lo'e me as ye say, ye winna gang 

and leave me. 

O never mair, bonnie lassie; will I gang and 

leave thee ; 
Never mair, bonnie lassie ,will I gang and 

leave thee ; 
Never mair, bonnie lassie, will I gang and 

leave thee; 
E'en let the world gang as it will, I'll stay 

at hame and cheer thee. 

Frac his hand he coost his stick ; I winna 

gang and leave thee ; 
Tlu-ew his plaid into the neuk ; never can I 

grieve thee ; 
Drew his boots, and flang them by ; cried niy 

lass, be cheerie ; 
I'll kiss the tear frae afF thy check, and 

never leave my dearie. 



BONNIE MARY HAY. 

CRAWFORD 

Bonnie Mary Hay, I will loe thee yet; 
For thine eye is the slae, and thy hair is the jet ; 
The snaw is thy skin, and the rose is thy 

cheek ; 
O, bonnie Mary Hay, I will loe thee yet ! 

O, bonnie Mary Hay, will ye gang wi' me, 
When the sun's in the west, to the hawthorn 

tree. 
To the hawthorn tree, and the bonnie beny 

den? 
And I'll tell thee, Mary Hay, how I loe thoe 

then. 

O, bonnie Mary Hay, it is haliday to me. 
When thou art couthie, kind, and free ; 
There's nae clouds in the lift, nor storms in 

the sky, 
Bonnic Mary Hay, when thou art nigh. 

O, bonnie Mary Hay, thou mauna say me nay, 
But come to the bower, by the hawthorn brae ; 
But come to the bower, and I'll tell ye a' what's 

true. 
How, bonnie Mary Hay, I can loe nane but 

you. 



CARLE, AN THE KING COME. 

Tune — " Carle, an the King come." 

Carle, an the king- conje, 
Cai'le, an the king come, 
Thou shalt dance and I will sing. 
Carle, an the king come. 



158 



BURNS* WORKS. 



An somebody were come again, 
Then somebody maun cross the main ; 
And every man shall hae his ain, 
Carle, an the king come. 

I trow we swappit for the worse ; 
We ga'e the boot and better horse ; 
And that we'll tell them at the corse, 
Carle, an the king come. 

When yellow corn grows on the rigs, 
And gibbets stand to hang the Whigs, 
O, then we'll a' dance Scottish jigs, 
Carle, an the king come. 

Nae mair wl' pinch and drouth we'll dine, 
As we hae done — a dog's propine — 
But quaff our draughts o' rosy wine, 
Carle, an the king come. 

Cogie, an the king come, 
Cogie, an the king come, 
I'se be fou and thou'se be toom 
Cogie, an the king come.* 



COME UNDER MY PLATDIE. 



Tune—" Johnny M'Gill." 

Come under my plaidie ; the night's gaun to fa' ; 
Come in frae the cauld blast, the drift, and the 



Come under my plaidie, and sit down beside me ; 
There's room in't, dear lassie, believe me, for 

twa. 
Come under my plaidie, and sit down beside me ; 
I'll hap ye frae every cauld blast that can blaw: 
Come under my plaidie, and sit down beside me ; 
There's room in't, dear lassie, believe me, for 

twa. 

Gae 'wa wi' yere plaidie ! auld Donald, gae 'wa ; 
I fear na the cauld blast, the drift, nor the snaw ! 
Gae 'wa wi* your plaidie ! I'll no sit beside ye ; 
Ye micht be my gutcher ! auld Donald, gae 'wa. 
I'm gaun to meet Johnnie — he's young and he's 

bonnie ; 
He's been at Meg's bridal, fou trig and fou braw ! 
Nane dances sae lichtly, sae gracefu', or tichtly. 
His cheek's like the new rose, his brow's like 

the snaw ! 

Dear Marion, let that flee stick to the wa' ; 
Your Jock's but a gowk, and has naething ava ; 
The haill o' his pack he has now on his back ; 
He's thretty, and I am but three score and twa. 



* This is an old favourite cavalier song ; the chorus, 
at least, is as old as the time of the Commonwealth, 
when the return of King Charles II. was a matter of 
daily prayer to the Loyalj$te. 



Be frank now and kindly — I'll busk ye aye 

finely ; 
To kirk or to market there'll few gang sae braw ; 
A bien house to bide in, a chaise for to ride in. 
And flunkies to 'tend ye as aft as ye ca'. 

My father aye tauld me, my mother and a', 
Ye'd mak a gude husband, and keep me aye 

braw ; 
It's true, I lo'e Johnnie ; he's young and he's 

bonnie ; 
But, wae's me ! I ken he has naething ava ! 
I hae little tocher ; ye've made a gude offer ; 
I'm now mair than twenty ; my time is but 

sma' ! 
Sae gie my your plaidie ; I'll creep in beside ye ; 
I thocht ye'd been aulder than three score and 

twa ! 

She crap in ayout him, beside the stane wa', 
Whare Johnnie was listnin', and heard her tell a': 
The day was appointed ! — his proud heart it 

dunted. 
And strack 'gainst his side, as if burstin' in 

twa. 
He wander'd hame wearie, the nicht it was 

drearie, 
And, thowless, he tint his gate 'mang the deep 

snaw : 
The howlet was screamin', while Johnnie cried, 

Women 
Wad marry auld Nick, if he'd keep them aye 

braw. 

O, the deil's in the lasses ! they gang now sae 

braw. 
They'll he down wi' auld men o' fourscore and 

twa ; 
The hail o' their marriage is gowd and a car- 
riage ; 
Plain love is the cauldest blast now that can 

blaw. 
Auld dotards, be wary ! tak tent when ye 

marry ; 
Young wives, wi' their coaches, they'll whip 

and they'll ca', 
Till they meet wi' some Johnnie that's youth- 

fu' and bonnie, 
And they'll gie ye horns on ilk haffet to claw. 



DUSTY MILLER. 

Tutu—'" The dusty Miller." 

Hey, the dusty miller. 

And his dusty coat ! 
He will win a shilling. 

Ere he spend a groat. 
Dusty was the coat, 

Dusty was the colour; 
Dusty was the kiss, 

That I gat frae the miller ! 



SONGS. 



m 



Hey, the dusty miller, 

And his dusty sack ! 
Leeze me on the calliiijj 

Fills the dusty peck ; 
Fills the dusty peck, 

Brings the dusty siller 
I wad gie my coatie 

For the dusty miller. 



THE WEARY FUND O' TOW. 

FROM RECITATION. 

3Vntf— " The weary pund o' tow.". 

I BOUGHT ray wife a stane o' lint 

As good as ere did grow. 
And a' that she could make o' that 

Was ae weary pund o' tow. 
The weary pund, the weary pund, 

The weary pund o' tow, 
I thought my wife would end her life 

Before she span her tow. 

I looklt to my yarn-nag, 

And it grew never mair ; 
I lookit to my beef-stand — • 

My heart grew wonder sail- j 
I lookit to my meal-boat, 

And O, but it was howe ! 
I think my wife will end her life 

Afore she spin her tow. 

But if your wife and my wife 

Were in a boat thegither, 
And yon other man's wife 

Were in to steer the ruther ; 
And if the boat were bottomless, 

And seven mile to row, 
I think they'd ne'er come harae again, 

To spin the pund o' tow I 



THE LANDART LAIRD. 

There lives a laiidart * laird in Fife, 
And he has married a dandily wife : 
She wadna shape, nor yet wad she sew, 
But sit wi' her cummers, and fill hersell fu' 

She wadna spin, nor yet wad she card ; 
But she wad sit and crack wi' the laird. 
Sae he is doun to the sheep-fauld, 
And cleekit a wetherf by the spauld. f 

He's whirled aff the gude wether's skin, 
And wrapped the dandily lady therein. 
" I downa pay you, for your gentle kin ; 
But weel may I skelp my wether's skin.§ 



* Landward— thit is, living in a part of the country 
at some distance from any town. 

t Wedder. J Shoulder. 

^ This curious and most amusing old ditty is from 
Mr. Jamieson's " Popular Ballads and SoDgs,"^1806'. 



KEEP THE COUNTRY, BONNIE 
LASSIE. 

Tune — " Keep the Country, bonnie Lassie."; 

Keep the country, bonnie lassie, 

Keep the country, keep the country ; 

Keep the country, bonnie lassie ; 
Lads will a' gie gowd for ye : 

Gowd for ye, bonnie lassie, 

Gowd for ye, gowd for ye : 
Keep the country, bonnie lassie ; 

Lads will a' gie gowd for ye. 



HAP AND ROW THE FEETIE O'T. 

WILLIAM CREECH.* 

Time—" Hap and Rowe the Feetie o't." , 

WeUl hap and row, well hap and row. 
Well hap and row the feetie o't. 

It is a wee bit weary thing : 
I downa bide the greetie o't. 

And we pat on the wee bit pan, 

To boil the lick o' meatie o't ; 
A cinder fell and spoil'd the plan. 

And burnt a' the feetie o't. 
We'll hap and row, §"c. 

■*^"- 
Fu' sair it grat, the puir wee brat. 

And aye it kicked the feetie o't, j »*»f «»«•*»• 

Till, puir wee elf, it tired itself; 

And then began the sleepie o't. 

We'll hap and roto, 8fc. 

The skirling brat nae parrltch gat. 
When it gaed to the sleepie o't ; 

It's waesome true, instead o' t's raou*. 

They're round about the feetie o't. 

We'll hap and row, S^c, 



JUMPIN' JOHN. 

Twne— ." Jumpiu' John." 

Her daddie forbade, her minnie forbade ; 

Forbidden she wadna be. 
She \vadna trow't, the browst she brewed, 
Wad taste sae bitterlie. 

The lang lad they ca' Jumpin John 

Beguiled the bonnie lassie ; 
The lang lad they ca' Jumpin' John 
Seguiled the bonnie lassie. 



* A gentleman long at the head of the bookselling 
trade in Edinburgh, and who had been Lord Provost 
of the city. A volume of his miscellaneous prose es- 
says has been published, under the titleof " Edinburgh 
Fugitive Pieces." He was not only remarkable tor 
his literary accomplishments, but also for his conver- 
sational powers, which were such as to open to him 
the society .of the highest literary men of his day. 



160 



BURNS' WORKS. 



A cow and a cauf, a yowe and a haul". 
And thretty gude shillings and three ; 

A very gude tocher, a cottarman's dochter. 
The lass wi* the bonnie black ee. 
The lang lady 8fc. 



O DEAR ! MINNIE, WHAT SHALL I DO ? 
rune—" O dear ! mother, what shall I do ?" 

" Oh dear ! minnie, what shall I do ? 
Oh dear ! minnie, what shall I do ? 
Oh dear ! minnie, what shall I do ?" 
*' Daft thing, doiled thing, do as I do." 

** If I be black, I canna be lo'ed ; 
If I be fair, I canna be gude ; 
If I be lordly, the lads will look by rae j 
Oh dear ! minnie, what shall I do ?" 

" Oh dear ! minnie, what ehall I do ? 
Oh dear ! minnie, what shall I do ? 
Oh dear ! minnie, what shall I do ?" 
*' Daft thing, doiled thing, do as I do." 



KILLIECRANKIE, O. 

Tune—" The braes o' Killiecrankie." 

Where hae ye been sae braw, lad ? 

Where hae ye been sae brankie, O ? 
Where hae ye been sae braw, lad ? 
Cam ye by Killiecrankie, O ? 

An ye had been where I hae been. 
Ye wadna been sae cantie, O ; 
jin ye had seen what I hae seen 
On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O. 

I've faught at land, I've faught at sea ; 

At hame I faught my auntie, O ; 
But I met the deevil and Dundee, 

On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O ! 
An ye had been, Sfc, 

The bauld Pitcur fell in a fur. 
And Claverse gat a clankie, O ; 

.Or I had fed an Athole gled, 

On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O. 
An ye had been, ^c. 



DONALD COUPER. 

Tune—" Donald Couper and his man. 

Hey Donald, howe Donald, 

Hey Donald Couper ! 
He's ganc awa to seek a wife, 

And he's come hame without her. 



O Donald Couper and his ma* 
Held to a Highland fair, man ; 

And a' to seek a bonnie lass — 
But fient a ane was there, man. 

At length he got a carline gray. 

And she's come hirplin hame, man ; 

And she's fawn owre the buffet stool, 
And brak her rumple-bane, man. 



LITTLE WAT YE WHA'S COMING. 

Tune — " Little wat ye wha's coming.* 

Little wat ye wha's coming, 
Little wat ye wha's coming. 
Little wat ye wha's coming ; 
Jock and Tarn and a' 's coming ! 

Duncan's coming, Donald's coming, 
Colin's coming, Ronald's coming, 
Dougal's coming, Lauchlan's coming, 
Alister and a' 's coming ! 

Little wat ye wha*s coming. 
Little wat ye wha's coming, 
Little wat ye wha's coming ; 
Jock and Tam and a' 's coming ! 

Borland and his men's coming. 
The Camerons and Maclean's coming. 
The Gordons and Macgregor's coming, 
A' the Duniewastles coming ! 

Little wat ye wha's coming. 
Little wat ye wha's coming. 
Little wat ye wha's comings 
MacGilvray o' Drumglass is coming ! 

Winton's coming, Nithsdale's coming, 
Carnwath's coming, Kenmure's coming, 
Derwentwater and Foster's coming, 
Withrington and Nairn's coming ! 

Little wat ye wha's coming, 
Little wat ye wha's coming. 
Little wat ye wha's coming ; 
Blythe CowhiU and a' *s coming ! 

The Laird o' Macintosh is commg," 
Macrabie and Macdouald's coming. 
The Mackenzies and Macphersons coming, 
A' the wild Mac Craws coming ! 

Little wat ye wha's coming, 
Little wat ye wha's coming, 
Little wat ye wha's coming ; 
Donald Gim and a' 's coming ' 

They g-ioom, they glowr, they look sae big, 
At ilka stroke they'll fell a Whig ; 
They'll fright the fuds of the Pockpuds ; 
For mony a buttock bore's coming. 



SONGS. 



161 



Little wat ye wlui's coming; 
Little wat ye wha's coming, 
Little wat ye wha's coming ; 
Mony a buttock baie's coming 



OCH HEY, JOHNNLE LAD. 

TANNAIilLL. 

OcH liey, Johnnie lail, 

Ye're no sac kind's ye sou'd hae been ; 
Och hoy, Johnnie lad, 

Ye didna keej) your tryst yestreen. 
I waited lang beside the wood, 

Sae wae and weary a' my lane : 
Och hey, Johnnie lad, 

It was a waefu' nicht yestreen ! 

I lookit by the whinny knowe, 

I lookit by the firs sae green ; 
I lookit ower the spunkie howe, 

And aye 1 thocht ye wad hae been. 
The ne'er a supper cross'd my craig. 

The ne'er a sleep has closed my een : 
Och hey, Johnnie lad, 

Ye're no sae kind's ye sou'd hae been 

Gin ye were waitin' by the wood, 

It's I was waitin' by the thorn ; 
I thocht it was the place we set. 

And waited maist till dawnin' morn. 
But be uae beat, my bounie lass. 

Let my waitin' stand for thine ; 
We'll awa to Craigton shaw, 

And seek the joys we tint yestreen. 



OUR GUDEMAN CAM' IIAME AT E'EN, 

OuK gudeman cam hame at e'en, 

And hame cam he ; 
And there he saw a saddle-horse, 

Where nae horse should be. 
Oh, how cam this horse here ? 

How can this be ? 
How cam this horse here ? 
Without the leave o' me ? 
A horse ! quo' she ; 
Aye, a horse, quo' he. 
Ye auld blind dotard carle, 
And blinder mat ye be I 
It's but a bonnie milk-cow, 
My mither sent to me. 
A milk- cow ! quo' he ; 
Aye, a milk- cow, quo' she. 
Far hae I ridden, 

And muckle hae I seen ; 
But a saddle on a milk-cow 
Saw I never nanc. 



Our gudeman cam hame at e'en, 

And hauie cam he ; 
He spied a pair o* jack-boots. 

Where nae boots should be. 
What's this now, gudewife ? 

What's this I see ? 
How cam thae boots here, 

Without the leave o' me ? 
Boots ! quo' she ; 
Aye, boots, quo' he. 
Ye auld blind dotard carle, 

And blinder mat ye be ! 
It's but a pair o' water-stoups, 

The cooper sent to me. 
Water-stoups ! quo' he ; 
Aye, water-stoups, quo' she. 
Far hae I ridden. 

And muckle hae I seen ; 
But siller-spurs on water-stoups 

Saw I never nane. 

Our gudeman cam hame at e'een, 

And hame cam he ; 
And there he saw a siller sword, 

Where nae sword should be. 
What's this now, gudewife ? 

What's this I see ? 
O how cam this sword here, 

Without the leave o' me ? 
A sword ! (juo' she ; 
Aye, a sword, quo' he. 
Ye auld blind dotard carle. 

And blinder mat ye be ! 
It's but a par ridge-spur tie, 

My minnie sent to me. 

A parridge-spurtle I quo' he ; 
Aye, a jt^rridge-spurtle, quo' she. 
Weel, far hae I ridden. 

And muckle hae I seen ; 
But siller-handed parridge-spurtles 

Saw I never nane. 

Our gudeman cam hame at e'en. 

And hame cam he ; 
And there he spied a powder' d wig. 

Where nae wig should be. 
Wliat's this now, gudewife ? 

What's this I see ? 
How cam this wig here, 

Without the leave o' me ? 
A wig ! quo' she ; 
Aye, a wig, quo' he. 
Ye auld blind dotard carle. 

And blinder mat ye be I 
'Tis nacthing but a clockeu-hen 

My minnie sent to me. 
A clocken-hen ! quo' he ; 
Aye, a clocken-hen, quo' she. 
Far hae I ridden. 

And muckle hae I seen, 
But pouther on a clocken-hen 

Saw I never nane. 

Our gudeman cam hame at e'en, 
And hame cam he ; 



41 



162 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And there he saw a mickle coat, 

Where nae coat should be. 
How cam this coat here ? 

How can this be ? 
How cam this coat here, 
Without the leave o' me ? 
A coat ! quo' she ; 
Aye, a coat, quo' he. 
Ye auld blind dotard carle, 
And blinder mat ye be ! 
It's but a pair o' blankets 
My raianie sent to me. 
Blankets ! quo' he ; 
Aye, blankets, quo' she. 
Far hae I ridden, 

And muckle hae I seen ; 
But buttons upon blankets 
Saw 1 never nane ! 

Ben gaed our gudeman, 

And ben gaed he ; 
And there he spied a sturdy man, 

Where nae man should be. 
How cam this man here ? 

How can this be ? 
How cam this man here, 

Without the leave o' me? 
A man ! quo' she ; 
Aye, a man, quo' he. 
Puir blind body. 

And blinder mat you be ! 
It's but a new milkin' maid. 

My mither sent to me. 
A maid ! quo' he ; 
Aye, a maid, quo' she. 
Far hae I ridden, 

And muckle hae I seep, 
But lang-bearded maidens 

Saw I never nane. 



GO TO BERWICK, JOHNIE. 
Tune—" Go to Berwick Johnie." 

Go to Berwick, Johnie ; 

Bring her frae the Border ; 
Yon sweet bonnie lassie. 

Let her gae nae farther. 
English loons will twine ye 

O' the lovely treasure ; 
But we'll let them ken, 

A sword wi' them we'll measure. 

Go to Berwick, Johnie, 

And regain your honour ; 
Drive them ower the Tweed, 

And show our Scottish banner. 
I am Rob the king, 

And ye are Jock, my brither ; 
But, before we lose her. 

We'll a' there thegither.* 



* This popular rant is from Johnson's Musical Mu- 
seum, vol. VI., 1805. Ilitson, in his Scottish Songs, 



IF YE'LL BE lAlY DAWTIE, AND SIT 
IN MY PLAID. 

Tune—" Hie, Bonnie Lassie." 

Hie, bonnie lassie, blink over the burn, 
And if your sheep wander I'll gie them a turn ; 
Sae happy as we'll be on yonder green shade. 
If ye'll be my dawtie, and sit in my plaid. 

A yowe and twa lammies are a' my haill stock. 
But I'll sell a lammie out o' my wee flock, 
To buy thee a head-piece, sae bonnie and braid. 
If ye'll be my dawtie, and sit in my plaid. 

I hae little siller, but ae hauf-year's fee. 
But if ye will tak' it, I'll gie't a' to thee ; 
And then we'll be married, and lie in ae bed, 
If ye'll be my dawtie, and sit in my plaid. 



I'LL NEVER LEAVE THEE. 



JOHNNY. 

seven years and 



mair, honour 



Though, for 

should reave me 

To fields where cannons rair, thou needsna 
grieve thee ; 

For deep in my spirit thy sweets are indented ; 

And love shall preserve ay what love has im- 
printed. 

Leave tliee, leave thee, I'll never leave thee, 

Gang the warld as it will, dearest, believe me ! 

NELLY. 

Oh, Johnny, I'm jealous, whene'er ye discover 
My sentiments yielding, ye'll turn a loose rover ; 
And nought in the world would vex my heart 

sairer. 
If you prove inconstant, and fancy ane fairer. 
Grieve me, grieve me, oh, it wad grieve me, 
A' the lang night and day, if you deceive me ! 



My Nelly, let never sic fancies oppress ye ; 
For, while my blood's warm, I'll kindly caress 

Your saft blooming beauties first kindled love's 

fire, 
Your virtue and wit mak it ay flame the higher. 
Leave thee, leave thee, I'll never leave thee, 
Gang the world as it will, dearest, believe me ! 



1795, mentions, that he had heard it gravely asserted 
at Edinburgh, that " a foolish song, beginning, 

Go, go, go, go to Berwick, Johnie ! 

Thou shalt have the horse, and I shall have the poncy J 

was made upon one of Wallace's marauding expedi- 
tions, a!ui that the person thus addressed was no other 
than his Jidus Achates, Sir John Graham." 



SONGS. 



163 



NELLY. 

Then, Jolinny ! I frankly this minute allow ye 
To think me your mistress, for love gars me 

trow ye ; 
And gin ye prove false, to yoursell be it said, 

then, 
Ye win but sma' honour to wrang a puir maiden. 
Reave me, reave mc, oh, it would reave me 
Of my rest, night and day, if you deceive me ! 



JOHNNY. 

Bid ice-shogles hammer red gauds on the studdy, 
And fair summer mornings nae niair appear 

ruddy ; 
Bid Britons think ae gate, and when they obey 

thee, 
But never till that time, believe I'll betray thee. 
Leave thee, leave thee ! I'll never leave thee ! 
The status shall gae withershins ere I deceive 

thee ! 



KATHERINE OGIE. 

As walking forth to view the plain, 

Upon a morning early, 
While INIay's sweet scent did cheer ray brain, 

From flowers which grow so rarely, 
I chanced to meet a pretty maid ; 

She shlned, though it was foggy ; 
I ask'd her name : sweet Sir, she said, 

My name is Katherine Ogle, 

I stood a while, and did admire, 

To see a nymph so stately ; 
So brisk an air there did appear, 

In a country maid so neatly : 
Such natural sweetness she display'd, 

Like a lllie in a bogle ; 
Diana's self was ne'er array'd 

Like this same Katherine Ogle. 

Thou flower of females, beauty's queen, 

Who sees thee, sure must prize thee ; 
Though thou art drest iu robes but mean. 

Yet these cannot disguise thee : 
Thy handsome air, and graceful look. 

Far excels any clownish rogle ; 
Thou art a match for lord or duke. 

My charming Katherine Ogle. 

<) were I but some shepherd swain ! 

To feed my flock beside thee. 
At boughting-time to leave the plain. 

In milking to abide thee ; 
I'd think myself a happier man. 

With Kate, my club, and dogie. 
Than he that hugs his thousands ten. 

Had I but Katherine Ogle. 



OWER HOGIF. 

ALLAN RAMSAY. 

Tune—" O'er Bogie." 

I WILL awa' wi' my love, 

I will awa' wl' her, 
Though a' niy kin had sworn ami said, 

I'll owcr Bogle wi' her. 
If I can get but her consent, 

I dinna care a strae ; 
Though ilka ane be discontent, 

Awa' wi her I'll gae. 

For now she's mistress o' my heart, 

And wordy o' my hand ; 
And weel, I wat, we shanna part 

For siller or for land. 
Let rakes delight to swear and drink, 

And beaux admire fine lace ; 
But my chief pleasure is to blink 

On Betty's bonnie face. 

I will awa' wi' ray love, 

I will awa' wi' her. 
Though a' my kin had sworn anci said, 

I'll o'er Bogie wi' her. 



LASS, GIN YE LO'E ME. 

JAMES TYTLER. 

Tune—''' Lass, gin ye lo'e me." 

I HAE laid a herring in saut — 

Lass, gin yc lo'e me, tell me now ; 
I hae brew'd a forpit o' maut. 

An' I canna come ilka day to woo : 
I hae a calf that will soon be a cow — 

Lass, gin ye lo'e me, tell me now ; 
I hae a stook, and I'll soon hae a mowe. 

And I canna come ilka day to woo : 

I hae a house upon yon moor — 

Lass, gin ye lo'e me, tell me now ; 
Three sparrows may dance upon the floor 

And I canna come ilka day to woo : 
I hae a but, an' I hae a ben — 

Lass, gin ye lo'e me, tell me now ; 
A penny to keep, and a penny to spen'. 

An' I canna come ilka day to woo : 

I hae a hen wi' a happitie-leg — 

Lass, gin ye lo'e me, tell rae now ; 
That ilka day lays me an egg, 

An' I canna come ilka day to woo : 
I hae a cheese upon my skelf — 

Lass, gin ye lo'e me, tell me now ; 
And soon wi' mltcs 'twill rln itself. 

And I canna come ilka day to woo. 



164 BURNS' WORKS. 

LASSIE, LIE NEAR ME. THE CAMPBELLS ARE COMING. 



DR. JBLACKLOCK, 

Tune—" Laddie, lie near me." 

Lang hae we parted been, 

Lassie, my deerie ; 
Now we are met again, 

Lassie, lie near me. 

Near me, near me,' 
Lassie, lie near me. 

Lang tast thou lain thy lane : 
Lassie, lie near me. 

A' that I hae endured, 

Lassie, my dearie, 
Here in thy arms is cured ; 

Lassie, lie near me. 



LOW DOUN I' THE BRUME.* 

Tune~-f' Low doun i' the Broom." 

My daddie is a cankert carle. 

He'll no twine wi' his gear ; 
My minnie she's a scauldin' wife, 
Hauds a' the house asteer. 

JBut let them say, or let them do. 

It's a ane to me. 
For he's low doun, he's in the brume, 

That's waitin on me : 
Waiting on me, my love. 

He's waiting on me : 
For he's low doun, he's in the hrtimr, 
That's waitin' on me. 

My auntie Kate sits at her wheel, 

And sair she lightlies me ; 
But weel I ken it's a' envy, 

For ne'er a joe has she. 

And let them say, §"c. 

My cousin Kate was sair beguiled 

Wi' Johnnie o' the Glen ; 
And aye sinsyne she cries. Beware 

O' fause deluding men. 

A.nd let them say, §*c. 

Gleed Sandy he cam wast yestreen. 
And speir'd when I saw Pate ; 

And aye sinsyne the neebors round 
They jeer me air and late. 
And let them say, §-c. 



* The cliorus of tliis song is very old : tradition 
ascri))es the verses to a I.aird of llalnamoon in Forfar- 
shire: hut upon tlint point the learned difter. it is 
one of the most popular ditties in Scotland. 



Tune—" The Campbells are coming." 

The Campbells are coming, 0-ho, O-ho ! 

The Campbells are coming, O-ho ! 
The Campbells are coming to bonnic Loch- 
leven ! 

The Campbells are coming, O-ho, O-ho / 

Upon the Lomonds I lay, I lay ; 

Upon the Lomonds I lay ; 
I lookit doun to bonnie Lochleven, 

And saw three perches play. 

The Campbells are coming, S^c. 

Great Argyle he goes before ; 

He makes the cannons and guns to roar ; 
With sound o' trumpet, pipe, and drum ; 

The Campbells are coming, O-ho, O-ho ! 
The Campbells are coining, 8fc. 

The Campbells they are a' in arms. 
Their loyal faith and truth to show, 

With banners rattling in the wind ; 

The Campbells are coming, O-ho, O-ho ! * 
The Campbells are coming, ^c. 



MERRY HAE I BEEN TEETHING A 
HECKLE. 

Tune-—" Lord Breadalbane's March." 

O MERRY hae I been teething a heckle, 

And merry hae I been shapin a spune ; 
O merry hae I been cloutln a kettle. 

And kissin my Katie when a' was dune. 
O a' the lang day I ca' at my hammer, 

And a' the lang day I whistle and sing ; 
A' the lang nicht I cuddle my kimnier, 

And a' the lang nicht as happy's a king. 

Bitter in dule I lickit my winnins, 

O' marrying Bess, to gie her a slave : 
Blest be the hour she cooled in her linens. 

And blythe be the bird that sings over he! 
grave ! 
Come to my arms, my Katie, my; Katie, 

And come to my arms, my Katie again ! 
Drucken or sober, here's to thee, Katie! 

And blest be the day I did it again ! 



* From Johnson's Musical Museum, Part IIL, 17<X1; 
where it is insinuated, as an on Uit, that it was com 
posed on the imprisonment of Queen Mary in Lodi- 
levcn Castle. The Lomonds arc two well-known 
hills, overhanging Lochleven to the east, and visibli- 
from Edinburgh. The air is the well-known family 
tvuic or march of the Clan Campbell. 



SONGS. 



iGr> 



MY AULD MAN. 

Tunc—'' Saw ye my Father ?" 

In the land of Fife there hved a wicked wit'o, 

And in the town of Cupar then, 
Who sorely did lament, and made her complaint, 

Oh when will ye die, my aiild man ? 

In cam her cousin Kate, when it was growing 
late, 
She said. What's gude for an auld man ? 
O wheit-breid and wine, and a kinncn new 
slain ; 
That's gude for an auld man. 

Cam ye in to jeer, or cam ye in to scorn, 

And what for cam ye in ? 
For bear-bread and water, I'm sure, is much 
better — 

It's ower gude for an auld man. 

Now the auld man's deid, and, without remeid, 

Into his cauld grave he's gane : 
Lie still wi' my blessing ! of thee I hae nae 



missmg ; 
ne'er mourn for an auld man. 



Within a little mair than three quarters of a year, 
She was married to a young man then. 

Who drank at the wine, and tippled at the beer. 
And sjjent more gear than he wan. 

O black grew her brows, and ho we grew her 
een, 

And cauld grew her pat and her pan : 
And now she sighs, and aye she says, 

I wish I had uiy silly auld man !* 



FOR THE SAKE OF SOMEBODY 

OLD VERSES. 

Tune—" Somebody." 

For the sake of somebody, 
For the sake nf somebody, 

I coidd wake a ivinter nicht. 
For the sake of somebody. 

i AM gaun to seek a wife, 
I am gaun to buy a plaidy ; 

1 have three stane o' woo' ; 

Carlinc,'is thy daughter ready ? 
For the sake of somebody, Sfc. 



* From Ritson's " ScottLsh Songs," ITit.l, into 
wliich tlic editor mentions tliat it was copied from 
some common collection, wliosc title he did not re- 
member. It has often been the task of the Scottish 
muse to point out the evils of ill-assorted alliances ; 
but she has scarcely ever done so with so much hu- 
mour, and, at the same time, so mucli force of moral 
painting, as in the present case. No tune is assigned 
to the song in Ritson's Collection ; but the present 
editor has ventured to suggest the fine air, " Saw ye 
my father," rather as l)eing suitable to the peculiar 
rhythm of the verses, tlian to the spirit of the compo- 
sition. 



Betty, lo-ssy, say't thysell, 

Tliough thy dame be ill to shoe ; 
First we'll buckle, then we'll tell ; 

Let her flyte, and syne come to. 
What signifies a mother's gloom. 

When love and kisses come in play ' 
Sliould we wither in our bloom, 



And in simmer mak nae 1 



uiy .' 



For the sake of somebody, 8fc. 

Bonny lad, I carcna by, 

Though I try my luck wl' thee, 
Since ye are content to tie 

The half-mark bridal-band wi' rae. 
I'll slip hame and wash my feet, 

And steal on linens fair and clean ; 
Syne at the trysting-place we'll meet, 
To do but what my dame has done. 
For the sake of somebody, 

For the sake of somebody, 

I could wake a winter nicht, 

For the sake of somebody. 



SANDY O'ER THE LEE. 

Tune^" Sandy o'er the lee." 

I wiNNA marry ony man but Sandy ower the 

lee, 

I winna marry ony man but Sandy ower the lee ; 

I winna hae the dominie, for gude he canna be ; 

But I will hae my Sandy lad, my Sandy ower 

the lee : 

For he's aye a-kissing, kissing, aye a-kiss- 

ing me ; 
He's aye a-kissing, kissing, aye a-kissing me. 

I winna hae the minister, for all his godly looks ; 
Nor yet will I the lawyer hae, for a' his wily 

crooks ; 
I winna hae the ploughman lad, nor yet will I 

the miller. 
But I will hae my Sandy lad, without a penny 

siller. 

For he's aye a-kissing, 8fc. 

I winna hae the soldier lad, for he gangs to the 

wars ; 
I winna hae the sailor lad, because he smells o* 

tar ; 
I winna hae the lord, or laird, for a' their mcikle 

gear. 
But I will hae my Sandy lad, my Sandy o'er 

the muir. 

For /te'.s aye a-kissing, Sfc. 



MY LOVE, SHE'S BUT A LASSIE YET, 

Tune-^*' My Love is but a lassie yet." 

My love, she^s but a lassie yet ; 
My love, she's but a lassk yet ,- 



166 



BURNS' WORKS. 



ril let her stand u year or iwa ; 
Shell no he half sae saucy yet. 

1 RUE the day I sought her, O ; 
I rue the day I sought her, O ; 
Wha gets her, needna say he's vvooM, 
But he may say he's bought her, O. 
My love, she's, 8fc. 

Come draw a drap o' the best o't yet ; 
Come draw a drap o' the best o't yet ; 
Gae seek for pleasure where ye will — 
But here I never miss'd it yet. 
My love, she's, Sfc. 

We're a' dry wi' drinking o't ; 
We're a' dry wi' drinking o't ; 
The minister kiss'd the fiddler's wife, 
And couldna preach for thinking o't. 
My love, she's, 8fc. 



MY WIFE HAS TA'EN THE GEE. 
Tune—" My Wife has ta'en the Gee." 

A FRIEND o' mine cam here yestreen, 

And he wad hae me down 
To drink a bottle o' ale wi' him 

In the neist burrows town : 
But oh, indeed, it was. Sir, 

Sae far the waur for me ; 
For, lang or e'er that I cam harae, 

My wife had tane the gee. 

We sat sae late, and drank sae stout, 

The truth I tell to you. 
That, lang or e'er the midnicht cam, 

We a' were roarin' fou. 
]\Iy wife sits at the fireside. 

And the tear blinds aye her ce ; 
The ne'er a bed wad she gang to, 

But sit and tak' the gee. 

In the mornin' sune, when I cam doun, 

The ne'er a word she spake ; 
But mony a sad and sour look. 

And aye her head she'd shake. 
IVIy dear, quoth I, what aileth thee, 

To look sae sour on me ? 
I'll never do the like again. 

If you'll ne'er tak' the gee. 

When that she heard, she ran, she flang 

Her arms about my neck ; 
And twenty kisses, in a crack ; 

And, poor wee thing, she grat. 
If you'll ne'er do the like again, 

But bide at hame wi' mc, 
I'll lay my life, I'll be the wife 

That never taks the gee.* 



» From Herd's collection, 1776. 



THE BONNIE LASS O' BRANKSOME. 

ALLAN RAMSAY. 
Turu — '• The Bonnie Lass o' Branksome." 

As I came in by Teviot side. 

And by the braes of Branksome, 
There first I saw my bonny bride, 

Yoiing, smiling, sweet, and handsome. 
Her skin was saftcr than the down, 

And white as alabaster ; 
Her hair, a shining, waving brown ; 

In straightness nane surpass'd her. 

Life glow'd upon her lip and cheek, 

Her clear een were surprising, 
And beautifully turn'd her neck. 

Her little breasts just rising : 
Nae silken hose with gushats fine, 

Or shoon with glancing laces, 
On her bare leg, forbade to shine 

Weel-shapen native graces. 

Ae little coat and bodice white 

Was sum o' a' her claithing ; 
E'en these o'er muckle; — mair delyte 

She'd given clad wi' naething. 
We lean'd upon a flowery brae, 

By which a burnie trotted ; 
On her I glowr'd my soul away, 

WTiile on her sweets I doated. 

A thousand beauties of desert 

Before had scarce alarm'd me. 
Till this dear artless struck my heart, 

And, hot designing, charm'd me. 
Hurried by love, close to my breast 

T clasp'd this fund of blisses, — 
Wha smiled, and said. Without a priest, 

Sir, hope for nocht but kisses. 

I had nae heart to do her harm. 

And yet I couldna want her ; 
What she demanded, ilka charm 

O' hers pled I should grant her- 
Since heaven had dealt to me a routh, 

Straight to the kirk I led her ; 
There plighted her my faith and trouth, 

And a young lady made her.* 



MY WIFE'S A WANTON WEE THING. 

Tunc — " My wife's a wanton wee thing." 
Mv wife's a wanton wee thing, 
My wife's a wanton wee thing. 



* This song, which appeared in the Tea- Table 
Miscellany, (17-1), was founded upon a real incident. 
The bonnic lass was daiigliter to a woman who kept 
an alehouse at the hamlet near Branksome Castle, m 
Teviotdale. A younp odicer, of some rank, — his name 
we believe; was Maitmnd, — happened to be be quarter- 
ed sonic where in the ncighbournood, saw, loved, and 
mavrieil her. So strange was such an alhance deemed 
in those days, that the old mother, under whose aus- 
pices it was performed, did not escape the imputation 
of witchcraft, 



SONGS. 



167 



I\Iy wife's a wanton wee thing ; 
She winna be guided by nie. 

She play'd the loon eie she was married, 
She play'd the loon ere she was married, 
She play'd the loon ere she was married ; 
She'U do't again ere she die ! 

She sell'd her coat, and she drank it, 
She sell'd her coat, and she drank it, 
She row'd hersell in a blanket ; 
She winna be guided by me. 

She mind't na when I forbade her. 
She mind't na when I forbade her ; 
I took a rung and I claw'd her. 
And a braw gude bairn was she ! * 



WE'RE A' NODDIN. 

Tune—" Nid noddin.' 

O, toe re a' noddin, nid, nid, noddin, 
O, we re a' noddin, at our house at hamc. 

How's a' wi' ye, kimmer? and how do ye 

thrive ? 
And how mony bairns hae ye now ? — Bairns I 

hae five. 
And are they a' at hame wi' you ? — Na, na, na ; 
For twa o' them's been herdin' sin* Jamie gaed 
awa. 
And we^re a' noddin, nid, nid, noddin ; 
And we're a' noddin, at our house at hame. 

Grannie nods i' the neuk, and fends as she may. 
And brags that we'll ne'er be what she's been 

in her day. 
Vow ! but she was bonnie ; and vow ! but she 

was braw, 
And she had rowth o' wooers ance, I'se warrant, 

great and sma.' 

And we're a' noddin, §-c. 

Weary fa' Kate, that she winna nod too ; 
She sits i' the corner, suppin' a' the broo ; 
And when the bit bairnies wad e'en hae their 

share, 
She gies them the ladle, but deil a drap's there. 
And we're a* noddin, §c. 

Now, fareweel, kimmer, and weel may ye thrive ; 
They sae the French is rinnin' for't, and we'll 

hae peace belyve. 
The bear's 'i the brear, and the hay's i' the stack. 
And a' '11 be right wi' us, gin Jamie were come 

back. 

And we're a noddin'. Sec. 



* From Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, vol. III. 
1790. The two first stanzas, however, appear in 
Herd's collection, 1776. 



]\IY NATIVE CALEDONIA. 

Saiu, sair was my heart, when I parted frae my 

Jean, 
And sair, sair I sigh'd, while the tears stood iu 

my een ; 
For my daddie is but poor, and my fortune is 

but sma' ; 
Which gars me leave my native Caledonia. 

When I think on days now gane, and how hap- 
py I hae been. 

While wandering wi' my dearie, where the prim- 
rose blaws unseen ; 

I'm wae to leave my lassie, and my daddie's sim- 
ple ha', 

Or the hills and healthfu' breeze o' Caledonia. 

But wherever I wander, still happy be my Jean ! 
Nae care disturb her bosom, where peace has 

ever been ! 
Then, though ills on ills befa' me, for her I'll 

bear them a'. 
Though aft I'll heave a sigh for Caledonia. 

But should riches e'er be mine, and my Jeanie 

still be true. 
Then blaw, ye favourin' breezes, till my native 

land I view ; 
Then I'll kneel on Scotia's shore, while the 

heart-felt tear shall fa'. 
And never leave my Jean and Caledonia. 



O, AN YE WERE DEID, GUIDMAN. 

Tune — " O, an ye war deid, Guidman." 

O, AN ye were deid, guidman. 
And a green trutf on your heid, guidman, 
That I might ware my widowheid 
Upon a rantin Highlandman. 

There's sax eggs in the pan, guidman, 
There's sax eggs in the pan, guidman ; 
There's ane to you, and twa to me. 
And tliree to our John Highlandman. 

There's beef into the pot, guidman. 
There's beef into the pot, guidman ; 
The banes for you, and the broe for me. 
And the beef fur our John Highlandman. 

There's sax horse in the sta', guidman, 
There's sax horse in the sta', guidman ; 
There's ane to you, and twa to me, 
And three to our John Highlandman. 

There's sax kye in the byre, guidman, 
Tliere's sax kye in the bjTe, guidman j 
There's nane o' them yours, but there's twa o 

them mine, 
And the lave is our John Highlaudman's, 



168 



BURNS' WORKS. 



OH, WHAT A PARISH ! 

ADAM CRAWFORD. 

Tune — " Bonnie Dundee.'* 

O, what a parish, ivhat a terrible parish, 
O, what a parish is that of Dunkell ! 
They hae hangit the minister, drouned the 
precentor, 
Duna down the steeple, and drucken the 
"hell! 

Though the steeple was douu, the kirk was still 
stannin ; 
They biggit a lum where the bell used to hang ; 
A stell-pat they gat, and they brewed Hielaud 
whisky ; 
On Sundays they drank it, and rantit and sang! 
O, what a parish, §'c. 

Oh, had you but seen how gracefu' it luikit, 
To see the crammed pews sae socially join ! 

Macdonald, the piper, stuck up i' the poupit. 
He made the pipes skirl sweet music divine ! 
O, what a parish, ^c. 

When the heart-cheerin spirit had mountit the 
garret. 
To a ball on the gi'cen they a' did adjourn ; 
Maids, wi' their coats kiltit, they skippit and 
liltit ; 
When tired, they shook hands, and a hame 
did return. 

O, what a parish, 8fc. 

Wad the kirks in our Britain baud sic social 
meetings, 
Nae warning they'd need frae a far -tinkling 
bell; 
For true love and friendship wad ca' them the- 
gither. 
Far better than roaring o' horrors o' hell.* 
O, what parish, 8fc. 



OLD KING COUL. 

Old King Coul was a jolly old soul, 

And a jolly old soul was he ; 
And old King Coul he had a brown bowl, 

And they brought hiui in fiddlers three ; 
And every fiddler was a very good fiddler, 

And a very good fiddler was he : 
Fiddle-diddle, fiddle-diddle, went the fiddlers 
three : 
And there's no a lass in a' Scotland, 

Compared to our sweet Marjorie. 

Old King Coul was. a jolly old soul, 
Aud a jolly old soul was he ; 

» Crawford, the inditor of Uiis curious frolic, was a 
tailor ill Ediuburgli, aud the author ofboiuc otlier good 
songs. 



Old King Coul, he had a brown bowl, 
And they brought him in pipers three •• 
Ha-diddlc, how-diddle, ha-diddle, how-diddle, 

went the pipers three ; 
Fiddle-diddle, fiddle-diddle, went the fiddlers 
three : 
And there's no a lass in a' the land, 
Compared to our sweet Marjorie. 

Old King Coul was a jolly old soul, 

And a jolly old soul was he ; 
Old King Coul, he had a brown bowl, 
And they brought him in harpers three : 
Twingle-twangle, twingle-twangle, went the 

harpers ; 
Ha-diddle, how-diddle, ha-diddle, how -diddle, 

went the pipers ; 
Fiddle-diddle, fiddle-diddle, went the fiddlers 
three : 
And there's no a lass in a' the land. 
Compared to our sweet Marjorie. 

Old King Coul was a jolly old soul, 
And a jolly old soul was he ; 
Old King Coul, he had a brown bowl, 

And they brought him in trumpeters three : 
Twarra-rang, twarra-rang, went the trumpet- 
ers; 
Twingle-twangle, twingle-twangle, went the 

harpers ; 
Ha-diddle, how-diddle, ha-diddle, how-diddle^ 

went the pipers ; 
Fiddle-diddle, fiddle-diddle, went the fiddlers 
three : 
And there's no a lass in a' Scotland, 
Compared to sweet Marjorie. 

Old King Coul was a jolly old soul. 

And a jolly old soul was he ; 
Old King Coul, he had a brown bowl, 

And they brought him in drummers three : 
Rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub, went the drummers ; 
Twarra-rang, twarra-rang, went the trumpet- 
ers; 
Twingle-twangle, twingle-twangle, went the 

harpers ; 
Ha-diddle, how-diddle, ha-diddle, how-diddle, 

went the pipers ; 
Fiddle-diddle, fiddle-diddle, went the fiddlers 
three : 
And there's no a lass in a' the land, 
Compared to sweet Marjorie. 



POVERTY PARTS GUDE COMPANIE. 



JOANNA BAILLIE. 



Tune—''' Todlin hamc.' 



When white was my o'eilay as foam o' the liuu, 
Aud siller was cliukiu' iiiy i)ouchcs within ; 



SONGS. 



169 



When my lambkins were bleating ou meadow 

and brae ; 
As I gaed to my love in new deeding sae gay, 

Kind was she, 

And my friends were free ; 

But poverty parts gude companie. 

How swift pass'd the minutes and hours of de- 
light ! 
The piper play'd cheerly, the crusie burn'd 

bright ; 
And link'd in my hand was the maiden sae dear, 
As she footed the floor in her holiday gear. 
Woe is me, 
And can it then be, 
That poverty parts sic companie ! 

We met at the fair, we met at the kirk. 

We met in the sunshine, and met in the mirk ; 

And the sounds of her voice, and the blinks of 

her een. 
The cheering and life of my bosom have been. 

Leaves frae the tree 

At IVIartinmas flee ; 

And poverty parts sweet companie. 

At bridal and infare I've braced me wi' pride ; 
The bruse I hae won, and a kiss o' the bride ; 
And loud was the laughter gay fellows among. 
When I utter'd my banter and chorus'd my song. 

Dowie to dree 

Are jesting and glee, 

When poverty jjarts gude companie. 

Wherever I gaed the blythe lasses smiled sweet. 

And mithers and auuties were mair than dis- 
creet. 

While kebbuck and bicker were set on the 
board ; 

But now they pass by me, and never a word. 
So let it be, 

For the worldly and slie 
Wi* poverty keep nae companie. 



WILLIE WAS A WANTON WAG. 

WILLIAM WALKING SHAW OF WALKINGSHAW. 

Tune—" Willie was a wanton Wag." 

Willie was a wanton wag. 

The blythest lad that e'er I saw : 
At bridals still he bore the brag. 

And carried aye the gree awa. 
His doublet was of Shetland shag. 

And wow but Willie he was braw ; 
And at his shouthers hung a tag 

That pleased the lasses best of a'. 

He was a man without a clag ; 

His heart was frank, without a flaw j 
And aye whatever Willie said, 
, It still was Laddea as a law. 



His boots they were made of the jag, 
When he went to the weapon-shaw ; 

Upon the gieen uane durst him brag, 
The fient a aue amang them a'. 

And was not Willie weel worth gowd ? 

He wan the love o' grit and sraa* ; 
For, after he the bride had kiss'd, 

He kiss'd the lasses haill-sale a'. 
Sae merrily round the ring they row'd, 

When by the hand he led them a' ; 
And smack on smack on them bestow'd, 

By virtue of a standing law. 

And was na Willie a great loun. 

As shyre a lick as e'er was seen ? 
When he danced with the lasses round. 

The bridegroom spier'd where he had been. 
Quoth Willie, I've been at the ring ; 

Wi' bobbin', faith, my shanks are sair ; 
Gae ca' the bride and maidens in, 

For Willie he dow do na mair. 

Then rest ye, Willie, I'll gae out. 

And for a wee fill up the ring ; 
But shame licht on his souple snout ' 

He wanted Willie's wanton fling. 
Then straight he to the bride did fare. 

Says, Weel's me on your bonny face ; 
With bobbin' Willie's shanks arc sair. 

And I am come to fill his place. 

Bridegroom, says she, you'll spoil the dance. 

And at the ring you'll aye be lag. 
Unless like Willie ye advance ; 

Oh, Willie has a wanton leg ! 
For wi't he learns us a' to steer, 

And foremost aye bears up the ring ; 
We will find nae sic dancin' here. 

If we want Willie's wanton fling. * 



THE AULD MAN'S MEAR'S DEAD. 

Tune—" The auld man's mear's dead." 

The auld man's mear's dead ; 
The puir body's mear's dead ; 
The auld man's mear's deady 
A. mile aboun Dundee. 

There was hay to ca', and lint to lead, 
A hunder hotts o' muck to spread, 
And peats and truff's and a' to lead — 
And yet the jaud to dee ! 

The auld man's, 8fc, 

She had the fiercie and the fleuk, 
The wheezloch and the wanton yeuk ; 
On ilka knee she had a break — ■ 
What ail'd the beast to dee ? 
The auld 7nan's, ^c. 



* From the Tea-Table Miscellany, 1724. As it is 
there signed by the initials of the author, there arises 
a presumption that he was alive, and a friend of Ram< 
say, at tlie period of the publication of that work. 



43 



170 



BURNS' WORKS. 



She was lang-tootVd and bleacli-lippit, 
Heam-hougli'd and haggis-fittit, 
Lang-neckit, chandler-chaftit, 
Aid yet the jaud to dee ! • 

The auld mans, S^c. 



ROY'S WIFE OF ALDIVALLOCH. 

MRS. GRANT OF CARRON. 

Tunc—" The Ruffian's Rant." 

JRoy^s wife of Aldivalloch, 

Hoi/'s wife of Aldivalloch, 

Wat ye how she cheated me, 

As I came o^er the braes of Balloch ? 

She vow'd, she swore, she wad be mine ; 

She said she lo'ed me best of onie ; 
But, ah ! the fickle, faithless quean, 

She's ta'en the carle, and left her Jolmle. 
Roy's wife, §-c. 

Oh, she was a canty quean, 

And weel could dance the Hieland walloch ! 
How happy I, had she been mine, 

Or I been Roy of Aldivalloch ! 
Roy's ivife, §t. 

Her hair sae fair, her een sae clear. 

Her wee bit mou' sae sweet and bonnie ! 

To me she ever will be dear, 

Though she's for ever left her Johnie. 
Rofs wife, 8fc. 



STEER HER UP AND HAUD HER 
GAUN. 

Tune — " Steer her up and haud her gaun." 

O STEER her up and haud her gaun ; 
Her mother's at the mill, jo : 



But gin she winna tak a man, 
E'en let her tak her will, jo. 

Pray thee, lad, leave silly thinking ; 
Cast thy cares of love away ; 

Let's our sorrows drown in drinking ; 
Tis daffin langer to delay. 

See that shining glass of claret, 

How invitingly it looks ! 
Take it aff, and let's have mair o't ; 

Pox on fighting, trade, and books ! 
Let's have pleasure, while we're able ; 

Bring us in the meikle bowl ; 
Place't on the middle of the table ; 

And let wind and weather gowl. 

Call the drawer ; let him fill it 

Fou as ever it can hold : 
Oh, tak tent ye dinna spill it ; 

'Tis mair precious far than gold. 
By you've drunk a dozen bumpers, 

Bacchus will begin to prove, 
Spite of Venus and her mumpers, 

Drinking better is than love. 



* The late Rev. Mr. Clunie, minister of tlie parish 
of Borthwick, near Edinburgh, (who was so enthusias- 
tically fond of singing Scottish songs, that lie used to 
hang his watch round the candle on Sunday evenings, 
and wait anxiously till the conjunction of the hands at 
12 o'clock permitted him to break out in one of his 
favourite ditties), was noted for the admiiable manner 
in which he sung " Bonny Dundee," " Waly, waly, 
up yon bank," " The Auld Man's Meav's dead," with 
many other old Scottish ditties. One dav, hapi)ening 
to meet with some friends at a tavern in Dalkeith, he 
was solicited to favour the company with the latter 
humorous ditty ; which he was accordingly singing 
with his usual effect and brilliancy, when the woinan 
who kept the house thrust her head in at the door, and 
added, at the conclusion of one of the choruses, " Od, 
the auld man's meat's dead, sureeneuch. Your horse, 
minister, has hanged itsell at my door." Such was 
really the fact. The minister, on ^oing into the house, 
had tied his horse by a rope to a hook, or ring, near 
the door, and as he was induced to stay much" longer 
than he intended, the poor animal, either through ex- 
haustion, or a sudden fit of disease, fell down, and was 
strangled. He was so much mortified by tliis unhappy 
accident, the coincidence of which vvith the subject of 
his song was not a little striking, that, all his life after, 
he could never be persuaded to sing " Tlie Auld Man's 
Meat's dead" again. 



SYMON BRODIE. 

Tune—" Symon Brodie." 

SvMON BaoDiE had a cow, 

The cow was lost, and he could na find her ; 
When he had done v/hat man could do. 

The cow cam hame, and her tail behind her. 
Hortest auld Symon Brodie, 
Stupid auld doitit bodie ! 

Ill awa to the North countrie, 
And see my ain dear Symon Brodie, 

Symon Brodie had a wife, 

And, wow ! but she was braw and bonnie ; 
She took the dish-clout aff the buik, 

And preen'd it to her cockernonie. 
Honest auld Symon Brodie, 8fc. 



NEIL GOW'S FAREWELL TO 
WHISKY. 

Tune—" Farwell to Whisky." 

You've surely heard o' famous Neil, 
The man that played the fiddle weel ; 
I wat he was a canty chiel, 

And dearly loe'tl the whisky, O. 
And, aye sin he wore the tartan trews, 
He deaily lo'ed the Athole brose ; 
And wae was he, you may suppose, 

To play farewell to whisky, O. 

Alake, quoth Neil, I'm frail and auld, 
And find my blude grow unco cauld ; 
I think 'twad make me hlythe and bauld, 
A wee drap Highland whiskv, 0. 



SONGS. 



171 



Yet tlie doctors tliey do a' agree, 
That whisky's no the drink for me. 
Saul ! quoth Neil, 'twill spoil my glee, 
Should they part me and whisky, O. 

Though I can baith get wine and ale, 
And find my head and fingers hale, 
I'll be content, though legs should fail, 

To play farewell to whisky, O. 
But still I think on auld lang syne. 
When Paradise our friends did tyne. 
Because something ran in their mind, 

Forbid like Highland whisky, O. 

Come, a' ye powers o' music, come j 
I find my heart grows unco glum ; 
My fiddle-strings will no play bum, 

To say, Fareweel to whisky, O. 
Yet I'll take my fiddle in my hand, 
And screw the pegs up while they'll stand, 
To make a lamentation grand. 

On gude auJd Highland whisky, O. 



THE LAMMIE. 



HECTOR MACNEir.L. 

Tune—" Whar hae ye been a' day." 

Whar hae ye been a' day. 

My boy Tammy ? 
I've been by burn and flow'ry brae. 
Meadow green and mountain grey. 
Courting o' this young thing, 

Just come frae her mammy. 

And whar gat ye that young thing, 

My boy Tammy ? 
I got her down in yonder howe, 
Smiling on a bonnie knowe, 
Herding ae wee lamb and ewe, 

For her poor mammy. 

What said ye to the bonnie bairn, 

My boy Tammy ? 
I praised her een, sae lovely blue. 
Her dimpled cheek and cherry mou ; — 
I pree'd it aft, as ye may trow ! — 

She said she'd tell her mammy. 

I held her to my beating heart, 

My young, my smiling lammie ! 

I hae a house, it cost me dear, 

I've wealth o' plenij^hen and gear ; 

Ye'se get it a', were't ten times mair. 
Gin ye will leave your mammy. 

The smile gaed aff her bonnie face — 
I maunna leave my mammy. 

She's gien me meat, she's gieu me clalse, 

She's been my comfort a' my days : — . 

My father's death brought monie waes — 
I canna leave my mammy. 



We'll tak her hame and mak her fain, 
My ain kind-hearted lammie. 

We'll gie her meat, we'll gie her claise, 

We'll be her comfort a' her days. 

The wee thing gies her hand, and says- 
There ! gang and ask my mammy. 

Has she been to the kirk wi' thee. 

My boy Tammy ? 
She has been to the kirk wi' me. 
And the tear was in her ee : 
For O ! she's but a young thing. 

Just come frae her mammy. 



THE WEE WIFIKIE. 

DR. A. GEDDES. 

Tune—" The wee bit Vv'ifikie." 

There was a wee bit wifikie was com in' frae 

the fair. 
Had got a wee bit drappikie, that bred her 

muckle care ; 
It gaed about the wilic's heart, and she began 

to spew ; 

! quo' the wifikie, I wish I binna fou. 
I wish I binna fou, I wish I binna fou, 
O ! quo' the wifikie, I wish I binna fou. 

If Johnnie find me barley-sick, I'm sure he'll 

claw my skin ; 
But I'll lie doun and tak a nap before that I 

gae in. 
Sittin' at the dyke-side, and takin' o' her nap, 
By cam a packman laddie, wi' a little pack. 
Wi' a little pack, quo she, wi' a little pack. 
By cam a packman laddie, wi' a little pack. 

He's cllppit a* her gowden locks, sae bonnie and 

sae lang ; 
He's ta'en her purse and a' her placks, and fast 

awa he ran : 
And when the wifie wakened, her head was 

like a bee. 
Oh ! quo' the wifikie, this is nae me. 

This is nae me, quo' she, this is nae me ; 
Somebody has been felliu' me, and this is nae 

me. 

1 met wi' kindlv company, and birl'd my baw- 

bee ! 

And still, if this be Bessikie, three placks re- 
main wi' me : 

And I will look the pursie neuks, see gin the 
cuuyie be ; — 

There's neither purse nor plack about me ' 
This is nae me. 
This is nae me, &c. 

I have a little housikic, but and a kiudly man . 
A dog, they ca' him Doussikie ; if this be me, 
he'll fawn : 



172 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And Johnnie he'll come to the door, and kindly 

welcome gie, 
And a' the bairns on the floor-head will dance, 

if this be me. 
Will dance, if this be me, &c. 

The nicht was late, and dang out weet, and, 

oh, but it was dark ; 
The doggie heard a body's fit, and he began to 

bark : 
O, when she heard the doggie bark, and ken- 

nin' it was he, 
O, weel ken ye, Doussiekie, quo she, this is nae 

me. 
This is nae me, &e. 

When Johnnie heard his Bessie's word, fast to 

the door he ran : 
Is that you, Bessikie ? — Wow, na, man ! 
Be kind to the bairns a', and weil mat ye be ; 
And fareweel, Johnnie, quo' she, this is nae me. 
This is nae me, &c. 

John ran to the minister ; his hair stood a' on 

end : 
I've gotten sic a fright, Sir, I fear I'll never 

mend ; 
]My wife's come hame without a head, crying 

out most plteouslie : 
Oh, fareweel, Johnnie, quo' she, this is nae me ! 
This is nae me, &c. 

The tale you tell, the parson said, is wonderful 

to me, 
How that a wife without a head should speak 

or hear, or see ! 
But things that happen hereabout so strangely 

alter'd be, 
That I could maist wi' Bessie say, 'Tis neither 

you nor she ! * 
Neither you nor she, quo' he, neither you 

nor she ; 
Wow, na, Johnnie man, 'tis neither you nor 

she. 

Now Johnnie he cam hame again, and wow, 

but he was fain. 
To see his little Bessikie come to hersell again. 
He got her slttin' on a stool, wi' Tibbock on 

her knee : 
O come awa, Johnnie, quo' she, come awa to 

me ; 
For I've got a drap wi' Tibbikie, and this is 

now me. 
This is now me, quo' she, this is now me ; 
I've got a drap wi' Tibbikie, and this is now 

me. 



* A Jacobite allusion, probably to the change of the 
Stuart for the Brunswick dynasty, in 17H. 



FAREWELL TO AYRSHIRE. 



Scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure. 
Scenes that former thoughts renew, 

Scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure. 
Now a sad and last adieu ! 

Bonny Doon, sae sweet and gloamia. 
Fare thee weel before I gang ! 

Bonny Doon, whare, early roaming, 
First I weav'd the rustic sang ! 

Bowers, adieu, whare Love, decoying, 
First inthrall'd this heart o' mine, 

There the saftest sweets enjoying, — 
Sweets that Mem'ry ne'er shall tyne ! 

Friends, so near my bosom ever, 
Ye hae rendered moment's dear ; 

But, alas ! when forc'd to sever. 
Then the stroke, O, how severe ! 

Friends ! that parting tear reserve it, 
Tho' 'tis doubly dear to me I 

Could I think I did deserve it, 
How much happier would I be ! 

Scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure. 
Scenes that former thoughts renew. 

Scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure. 
Now a sad and last adieu ! 



TIBBIE FOWLER.^ 



Tune—" Tibbie Fowler." 



Tibbie Fowler o' the Glen, 

There's ower mony wooing at her ; 
Tibbie Fowler o' the Glen, 

Tliere's ower mony wooing at her. 
Wooiii' at her, pu^in' at her, 

Courtin her, and canna get her ; 
FiWii/ elf, it's for her pelf 

Tliat a' the lads are wooing at her. 

Ten cam east, and ten cam west ; 
Ten cam rowin' ower the water ; 



* Said to have been written by the Rev. Dr. 
Strachan, late minister of Carnwath, although cer- 
tainly grounded upon a song of older standing, the 
name of which is mentioned in the Tea-Table Miscel- 
lany. The two first verses of the song appeared in 
Herd's Collection, 1776. 

There is a tradition at Leith that Tibbie Fowler was 
a real person, and married, some time during the se- 
venteenth century, to the representative of the attaint- 
ed family of Logan of Restalrig, whose town-house, 
dated ICjG, is still pointed out at the head of a street 
in Leith, called the Sheriff-brae. The marriage-con- 
tract between Logan and Isabella Fowler is still extant, 
in the possession of a gentleman resident at Leith.— 
See Campbell's History of Leith, note, p. 314. 



SONGS. 



17S 



Twa cam down the lang dyke-side : 
There's twa-and-thirty wooin' at her. 
Wooiri' at her, §'c. 

There's seven but, and seven ben, 
Seven in the pantry wi' her ; 

Tvventy head about the door : 

There's ane-and-forty wooin' at her. 
Wooin' at her, §*c. 

She's got pendles in her lugs ; 

Cockle-shells wad set her better ! 
High-heel'd shoon, and siller tags ; 

And a' the lads are wooin' at her. 
Wooin' at her, Sfc. 

Be a lassie e'er sae black, 

Gin she hae the penny siller. 

Set her up on Tintock tap, 

The wind will blaw a man till her. 
Wooin' at her, 8fc. 

Be a lassie e'er sae fair, 

An she want the penny siller, 

A flie may fell her in the air. 
Before a man be even'd till her. 
Wooin' at her, 8fc. 



ANNIE LAURIE.* 

Maxwelton banks are bonnie. 

Where .early fa's the dew ; 
Where me and Annie Laurie 

Made up the promise true ; 
Made up the promise true, 

And never forget will I ; 
And for bonnie Annie Laurie 

I' 11 lay me doun and die. 

She's backit like the peacock ; 

She's breistit like the swan ; 
She's jimp about the middle ; 

Her waist ye weel micht span 
Her waist ye well micht span, 

And she has a rolling eye ; 
And for bonnie Annie Laurie 

I'll lay me doun and die. 



THE BRISK YOUNG LAD. 

Tune—" Bung your eye in the morning." 

There cam a young man to my daddie's door, 
My daddie's door, my daddie's door ; 
There cam a young man to my daddie's door, 
Cam seeking me to woo. 

And wow ! hut he was a hraw young lad, 
A. brisk yoting lad, and a hraw young lad; 
And toow I but he was a hraw young lad. 
Cam seeking me to woo. 

But I was baking when he came, 
When he came, when he came ; 
I took him in and gied him a scone. 
To thowe his frozen mou. 

And wow ! hut he was, 8fc. 

I set him in aside the bink ; 
I gae him bread and ale to drink ; 
And ne'er a blythe styme wad he blink, 
Until his wame was fou. 

And wow ! but he was, 8fC. 

Gae, get you gone, you cauldrife wooer. 
Ye sour-looking, cauldrife wooer ! 
I straightway show'd him to the door, 
Saying, Come nae mair to woo. 

And wow ! hut he was, §c. 

There lay a deuk-dub before the' door, 
Before the door, before the door ; 
There lay a deuk-dub before the door. 
And there fell he, I trow ! 

And wow ! but he was, 8fc. 

Out cam the guidman, and high he shouted ; 
Out cam the guidwife, and laigh she louted ; 
And a' the toun-neebors were gather'd about it ; 
And there lay he, 1 trow ! 

Arid W07V ! hut he was, Sfc, 

Then out cam I, and sneer'd and smiled ; 
Ye cam to woo, but ye're a' beguiled ; 
Ye've fa'en i' the dirt, and ye're a' befyled ; 
We'U hae nae mair o' you ! 

And wow ! but he was, §-c. 



* These two verses, which are in a style wonderful- 
ly tender and chaste for their age, were written by a 
Mr. Douglas of Fingland, upon Anne, one of the four 
daughters of Sir Robert Laurie, first Baronet of Max- 
welton, by his second wife, who was a daughter of 
Riddell of Minto. As Sir Robert was created a ba- 
ronet in the year 1685, it is probable that tlie verses 
were composed about the end of the seventeenth or the 
beginning of the eighteenth century. It is painful to 
record, tliat, notwithstanding the ardent and chival- 
rous affection displayed by Mr. Douglas in his ])ocm, 
he did not obtain the heroine for a wife : She was mar- 
ried to Mr. Ferguson of Craigdarroch. — See " A Bal- 
lad Book," (printed at Edinburgh in 1824), p. 107. 



KIND ROBIN LO'ES ME. 
Tune—" Robin lo'es me," 

Robin is my only jo. 

For Robin has the art to lo'e ; 

Sae to his suit I mean to bow. 

Because I ken he lo'es me. 
Happy, happy was the shower. 
That led me to his birken bower, 
Wlicre first of love I fand the power, 

And kenn'd that Robin lo'ed me. 

They speak of napkins, speak of rings, 
Speak of gluves and kissin' strings ; 



174. 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And name a thousand bonnie things, 
And ca' them signs he lo'es me. 

But I'd prefer a smack o' Rob, 

Seated on the velvet fog, 

To gifts as hmg's a plaiden wab ; 
Because I ken he lo'es me. 

He's tall and sonsie, frank and free, 
Lo'ed by a', and dear to me ; 
Wi' him I'd live, wi' him I'd dee, 

Because my Robin lo'es me. 
My tittie Mary said to me, 
Our courtship but a joke wad be, 
And I or lang be made to see 

That Robin didna lo'e me. 

But little kens she what has been, 
Me and my honest Rob between ; 
And in his wooing, O sae keen 

Kind Robin is that lo'es me. 
Then fly, ye lazy hours, away. 
And hasten on the happy day, 
When, Join your hands, Mess John wil 

And mak him mine that lo'es me. 

Till then, let every chance unite 
To fix our love and give delight, 
And I'll look down on such wi' spite, 
Wha doubt that Robin lo'es me. 
O hey, Robin ! quo' she, 
O hey, Robin ! quo' she, 
O hey, Robin ! quo' she ; 
Kind Robin lo'es me. 



say, 



THE POETS, WHAT FOOLS THEY'RE 
TO DEAVE US. 

ROBERT GILFILLAN. 

Tune—'" Fy, let us a' to the bridal." 

The poets, what fools they're to deave us, 

How ilka ane's lassie's sae fine ; 
The tane is an angel — and, save us ! 

The neist anc you meet wi's divine ! 
And then there's a lang-nebbit sonnet, 

Be't Katie, or Janet, or Jean ; 
And the moon, or some far-awa planet's 

Compared to the blink o' her een. 

The earth an' the sea they've ransackit 

For sim'lies to set off their charms ; 
And no a wee flow'r but's attackit 

By poets, like bumbees, in swarms. 
Now, what siguities a' this clatter. 

By chiels that the truth winna tell ? 
Wad it no be settlin' the matter. 

To say, Lass, ye're just like your sell ? 

An' then there's nae end to the evil. 
For they are no deaf to the din — 

That like me ony puir luckless deevil 
Daur scarce look the gate they are in ! 



But e'en let them be, wi' their scornin' : 
There's a lassie whase name I could tell ; 

Her smile is as sweet as the mornin' — 
But whisht ! I am ravin' mysell. 

But he that o' ravin's convicklfc. 

When a bonnie sweet lass he thinks on, 
May he ne'er get anither strait jacket 

Than that buckled to by Mess John ! 
An' he wha — though cautious an' canny — • 

The charms o' the fair never saw. 
Though wise as King Solomon's grannie, 

I swear is the daftest of a'. 



'TWAS WITHIN A MILE OF EDIN- 
BURGH TOWN. 

Tune—" Within a mile of Edinburgh." 

'TwAs within a mile of Edinburgh town, 
In the rosy time of the year ; 

Sweet flowers bloom'd, and the grass was down, 
And each shepherd woo'd his dear. 
Bonny Jockey, blythe and gay, 
Kiss'd sweet Jenny, making hay, 

The lassie blush'd, and frowning, cried, *' No, 
no, it will not do ; 

I cannot, cannot, wonnot, wonnot, mannot buc- 
kle too." 

Jockey was a wag that never would wed, 
Though long he had followed the lass ; 

Contented she earned and eat her own bread. 
And merrily turn'd up the grass. 
Bonny Jockey, blythe and free. 
Won her heart right merrily : 

Yet still she blush'd, and frowning, cried, " No, 
no, it will not do ; 

I cannot, cannot, wonnot, wonnot, mannot buc- 
kle too." 

But when he vow'd he would make her his 
bride, 
Though his flocks and herds were not few, 

She gave him her hand, and a kiss beside. 
And vow'd she'd for ever be true. 
Bonny Jockey, blythe and free. 
Won her heart right merrily : 

At church she no more frowning, cried, " No, 
no, it will not do ; 

I cannot, cannot, wonnot, wonnot, mannot buc- 
kle too." 



MY LUVE'S IN GERMANIE. 

Tune — " My luve's in Germanie." 

Mt luve's in Germanie ; 

Send him hame, send him harae ; 
My luve's in Germanie j 

Send him harae. 



SONGS. 



175 



My luve's in Gcrmanie, 
Fighting brave for royalty ; 
He may ne'er his Jeanie see ; 

Send him hame, send him hamc j 
He may ne'er his Jeanie see ; 

Send him hame. ^ 

He's as brave as brave can be ; 

Send him hame, send him hame ; 
Our faes are ten to three ; 

Send him hame. 
Our faes are ten to three ; 
He maun either fa' or flee, 
In the cause of loyalty ; 

Send him hame, send him hame ; 
In the cause of loyalty ; 

Send him hame. 

Your luve ne'er learnt to flee, 

Bonnie dame, winsome dame ; 
Your luve ne'er learnt to flee, 

Winsome dame. 
Your luve ne'er learnt to flee, 
But he fell in Germanic, 
Fighting brave for loyalty, 

JMournfu' dame, mournfu' dame j 
Fighting brave for loyalty, 

IMournfu' dame. 

He'll ne'er come ower the sea ; 

Willie's slain, Willie's slain ; 
He'll ne'er come ower the sea; 

Willie's gane ! 
He will ne'er come ower the sea, 
To his luve and ain countrie. 
This warld's nae mair for me ; 

Willie's gane, Willie's gane ; 
This warld's nae mair for me ; 

Willie's gane ! 



TO THE KYE WI' iAIE. 

WAS na' she worthy o' kisses, 
Far raae than twa or three, 

And worthy o' bridal blisses, 
Wha gaed to the kye wi' me. 

O gang to the kye wi' me, my love, • 

Gang to the kye wi' me, 
Ower the burn and through the broom. 
And I'll be merry wi' thee. 

1 hae a house a biggin, 

Auither tliat's like to fa'. 
And I love a scomfu' lassie, 
Wha grieves me warst of a'. 

O gang to the kye wi' me, my love, 

O gang to the kye wi' me. 
Ye'U think nae muir o' your mither 
Amang the broom wi' me. 

I hae a house a biggin, 
Anither that's like to fd', 



I hae noo the lassie wi' bairn. 
Which vexes me warst of a*. 

gang to the kye wi' me, my love, 
Gang to the kye wi' me, 

1 hae an auld mither at hame, 

Will doodle it ou her knee. 



THE MILLER O' DEE. 

Tune—" The Miller of Dee." 

There was a jolly miller once 

Lived on the river Dee ; 
He wrought and sung from mom till night, 

No lark more blythe than he. 
And this the burden of his song 

For ever used to be ; 
I care for nobody, no, not I, 

If nobody cares for me. 
jind this, 8fc. 

Wlien spring began its merry career, 

O, then his heart was gay ; 
He feared not summer's sultry heat, 

Nor winter's cold decay. 
No foresight marred the miller's cheer, 

Who oft did sing and say. 
Let others live from year to year, 

I'll live from day to day. 
]Vo foresight, ^c. 

Then, like this miller, bold and free. 

Let us be glad and sing ; 
The days of youth are made for glee. 

And life is on the wing. 
The song shall pass from me to you. 

Around this jovial ring. 
Let heart, and hand, and voice agree : 

And so, God save our king.* 
The song, §-c. 



SAW YE MY FATHER? 

Tune — " Saw yc my father ?" 

" O SAW ye my father, or saw ye my mother, 

Or saw ye my true love John ?" 
" I saw not your father, I saw not your mother. 

But I saw your true love John." 

" It's now ten at night, and the stars gle nae 
light. 
And the bells they ring ding dong ; 
He's met with some delay, that causeth him to 
stay ; 
But he will be here ere long." 

The surly auld carle did naething but snarlc. 
And Jennie's face it grew red ; 



* From an old IMS', copy. The song seems to have 
beta first printed in Herd's Collection, 1776. 



176 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Yet, though he often sighed, he ne'er a word 
replied, 
Till all were asleep in bed. 

Up Johnie rose, and to the door he goes, 

And gently tirled at the pin. 
The lassie, taking tent, unto the door she went, 

And she opened and let him in. 

" And are ye come at last, and do I hold ye fast ? 

And is my Johnie true ?" 
" I have nae time to tell, but sae lang's I like 
mysell, 

Sae lang sail I love you." 

" Flee up, flee up, my bonnie grey cock, 

And craw whan it is day : 
Your neck shall be like the bonnie beaten gowd. 

And your wings of the silver grey." 

The cock proved fause, and untrue he was ; 

For he crew an hour ower sune. 
The lassie thought it day, when she sent her 
love away, 

And it was but a bUnk o' the mune. 



TAM O' THE BALLOCH. 



H. AINSLEY. 

Tune — " The Campbells are coming. 

In the Nick o' the Balloch lived Muirland Tarn, 
Weel stentit wi' brochan and braxie-ham ; 
A breist like a buird, and a back like a door. 
And a wapping wame that hung down afore. 

But what's come ower ye, Muirland Tam ? 
For your leg's now grown like a wheel-barrow 

tram ; 
Your ee it's faun in — your nose it's faun out. 
And the skin o' your cheek's like a dirty clout. 

ance, like a yaud, ye spanklt the bent, 
Wi* a fecket sae fou, and a stocking sae stent. 
The strength o' a stot — the wecht o' a cow ; 
Now, Tammy, my man, ye're grown like a grew. 

1 mind sin' the blink o' a canty quean 

Could watered your mou and lichtit your een ; 
Now ye leuk like a yowe, when ye should be a 

ram ; 
O what can be wrang wi' ye, Muirland Tam ? 

Has some dowg o' the ylrth set your gear abreed ? 
Hae they broken your heart or broken your head ? 
Hae they rackit wi' rungs or kittled wi' steel ? 
Or, Tammy, my man, hae ye seen the deil ? 

Wha ance was your match at a stoup and a tale ? 
Wi' a voice like a sea, and a drouth like a whale ? 



Now ye peep like a powt ; ye glumph and ye 

gaunt ; 
Oh, Tammy, my man, are ye turned a saunt ? 

Come, lowse your heart, ye man o' the muir ; 
We tell our distress ere we look for a cure : 
There's laws for a wrang, and sa's for a sair ; 
Sae, Tammy, my man, what wad ye hae mair ? 

Oh ! neebour, it neither was thresher nor thief, 
That deepened my ee, and lichtened my beef; 
But the word that makes me sae waefu' and wan. 
Is — Tam o' the Balloch's a married man ! 



HAUD AWA FRAE ME DONALD. 

Haud awa, bide awa ! 

Hand awa frae me, Donald : 
I've seen the man I well could love. 
But that was never thee, Donald. 
Wi' plumed bonnet waiving proud. 

And claymore by thy knee, Donald, 

And Lord o' Moray's mountains high, 

Thou'rt no a match for me, Donald. 

Haud awa, bide awa, 

Haud awa frae me, Donald, 
What sairs your mountains and your lochs, 
I canna swim nor flee Donald : 
But If ye'U come when yon fair sun 
Is sunk beneath the sea, Donald, 
I'll quit my kin, and kilt my cots. 
And take the hills wi' thee, Donald. 

One of the old verses runs thus : — 

Haud awa, bide awa, 

Haud awa frae me, Donald, 
Keep awa your cauld hand 

Frae my warm knee Donald. 



AULD ROB MORRIS. 

,Tune—" Auld Rob Morris." 

MOTHER. 

Auld Rob Morris, that wons in yon glen. 
He's the king o' guid fallows, and wale o' auld 

men; 
He has fourscore o' black sheep, and fourscore 

too; 
Auld Rob Morris is the man ye maun lo'e. 

DAUGHTER. 

Haud your tongue, mother, and let that abee j 
For his eild and my eild can never agree : 
They'll never agree, and that will be seen ; 
For he is fourscore, aud I'm but fifteen. 



SONGS. 



177 



MOTHER. 

Hand your tongue, dochter, and lay by your pi ide 
For he is the bridegroom, and ye'se be the bride 
He shall lie by your side, and kiss you too ; 
Auld Rob JVIorris is the man ye maun lo'e. 

DAUGHTEll. 

Auld Rob Morris, I ken him fu' weel. 
His back sticks out like ony peat-creel ; 
He's out- shinn'd, in-kueed, and riugle-eyed too 
Auld Rob JMorris is the man I'll ne'er lo'e. 



MOTHER. 

Though auld Rob Morris be an elderly man. 
Yet his auld brass will buy you a new pan ; 
Then, dochter, ye should ua be sa ill to shoe. 
For auld Rob JMorris is the man ye maun lo'e. 

DAUGHTER. 

But auld Rob Alorris I never will hae. 
His back is so stifi", and his beai'd is grown grey ; 
I had rather die than live wi' him a year ; 
Sae mair o' Rob Morris I never will hear. 



THE MALT-MAN. 

The malt-man comes on Munday, 

He craves wonder sair. 
Cries, Dame, come gi'e me my siller. 

Or malt ye sail ne'er get mair. 
I took him into the pantry, 

And gave him some good cock-broo, 
Syne paid him upon a gantree, 

As hostler-wives should do. 

When malt-men come for siller, 

And gaugers with wands o'er soon, 
Wi\es, tak them a' down to the cellar, 

And clear them as I have done. 
This bewith, when cunzie is scanty, 

Will keep them frae making din ; 
The knack I learu'd frae an auld aunty, 

The snackest of a' my kin. 

The uialt-man is right cunning, 

But I can be as slee, 
And he may crack of his winning. 

When he clears scores with me : 
For come when he likes, I'm ready ; 

But if frae hauie I be. 
Let him wait on our kind lady, 

She'll answer a bill for me. 



THE AULD WIFE BEYONT THE FIRE. 

There was a wife won'd in a glen, 
And she had dochters nine or ten. 

That sought the house baith but and ben, 
To find their mam a suisbiog. 



The auld u'lfe heyont the fire. 
The auld wife aniest the fire^ 
The auld wife ahoon the fire. 
She died for lack of snishing,* 

Her mill into some hole had fawn, 
Whatrecks, quoth she, let it be gawn, 
For I maun hae a young goodman 

Shall furnish me with snishing. 
The auld tcife, §-f. 

Her eldest dochter said right bauld, 
Fy, mother, mind that now ye're auld, 
And if ye with a younker wald. 

He'll waste away your snishing. 
The auld wife, §c. 

The youngest dochter ga'e a shout, 
O mother dear ! your teeth's a' out. 
Besides ha'f blind, you have the gout. 

Your mill can had nae snishing. 
The auld wife, Sfc. 

Ye lied, ye limmers, cries auld mump) 
For I hae baith a tooth and stump, 
And will nae langer live in dump. 

By wanting of ray snishing. 
2Vie auld ivife, Sfc. 

Thole ye, says Peg, that pawky slut, 
Mother, if ye can crack a nut, 
Then we will a' consent to it. 

That you shall have a snishing. 
The auld wife, §'c. 

The auld ane did agree to that. 
And they a pistol-bullet gat ; 
She powerfully began to crack, 

To win hersell a snishing. 
The aidd wife, §'c. 

Braw sport it was to see her chow't, ' 
And 'tween her gums sae squeeze and row'(^ 
While frae her jaws the slaver flow'd, 

And ay she curs'd poor stumpy. 
The auld wife, Sfc. 

At last she ga'e a desperate squeez, 
Which brak the lang tooth by the neez, 
Atid syne poor stumpy was at ease, 

But she tint hopes of snishing. 
The aidd wife, §'c. 

She of the task began to tire. 
And frae her dochters did retire. 
Syne lean'd lier down ayont the fire. 

And died for lack of snishing. 
The auld wife, §-c. 

Ye auld wives, notice well this truth, 
Assoon as ye're past mark of mouth, 



Snishinp, in its liferal meaning, is snuff made of 
tobaeeo; but, in tliis song, it means sometimes con« 
tentment, a hui>band, Jove, money, i&c. 



43 



178 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Ne'er do what's only fit for youth, 
And leave aff thoughts of snishing : 

Else, like this wife heyont the fire, 
YeW bairns against you will conspire ; 
Nor will ye get, unless ye hire, 
A young man with your snishing. 



BESSY BELL AND MARY GRAY. 

O BESSY Bell and Mary Gray, 

They are twa bonny lassies, 
They blgg'd a bow'r on yon burn-brae, 

And theek'd it o'er wi' rashes. 
Fair Bessy Bell I loo'd yestreen, 

And thought I ne'er could alter ; 
But Mary Gray's twa pawky een, 

They gar my fancy falter. 

Now Bessy's hair's like a lint tap ; 

She smiles like a INIay morning, 
When Phoebus starts frae Thetis' lap. 

The hills with rays adorning : 
White is her neck, saft is her hand. 

Her waist and feet's fu' genty ; 
With ilka grace she can command ; 

Her lips, O wow ! they're dainty. 

And Mary's locks are like a craw, 

Her een like diamonds glances ; 
She's ay sae clean, redd up, and braw, 

She kills whene'er she dances : 
Blythe as a kid, with wit at will. 

She blooming, tight, and tall is ; 
And guides her airs sae gracefu' still. 

O Jove, she's like thy Pallas. 

Dear Bessy Bell and IMary Gray, 

Ye unco sair oppress us ; 
Our fancies jee between you twa. 

Ye are sic bonny lassies : 
Wae's me ! for baith I canna get, 

To ane by law we're stented ; 
Then I'll draw cuts, and take my fate. 

And be with ane contented. 



BONNY BARBARA ALLAN. 

It was in and about the Martinmas time, 
When the green leaves were a-falling, 

That Sir John Graeme in the west country 
Fell in love with Barbara Allan. 

He sent his man down through the town, 
To the place where she was dwelling, 

O haste, and come to my master dear, 
Gin ye be Barbara Allan. 

O hooly, hooly rose she up, 

To the place where he was Jying, 



And when she drew the curtain by, 
Young man, I think you're dying 

O its I'm sick, and very very sick, 

And 'tis a' for Barbara Allan. 
O the better for me ye's never be, 

Tho' your heart's blood were a- spilling. 

O dinna ye mind, young man, said she. 
When he was in the tavern a-drinkiug. 

That ye made the healths gae round and rounds 
And slighted Barbara Allan ? 

He turn'd his face unto the wall. 
And death was with him dealing ; 

Adieu, adieu, my dear friends all. 
And be kind to Barbara Allan. 

And slowly, slowly raise she up, 

And slowly, slowly left him ; 
And sighing, said, she coii'd not stay, 

Since death of life had reft him. 

She had not gane a mile but twa. 

When she heard the dead-bell ringing, 

And every jow that the dead-bell gied, 
It cry'd, Wo to Barbara Allan. 

O mother, mother, make my bed, 

O make it saft and narrow^. 
Since my love dy'd for me to-day, 

I'll die for him to-morrow. 



ETTRICK BANKS. 

On Ettrick banks, in a summer's night, 

At glowraing when the sheep drave hame ; 
I met my lassie braw and tight. 

Came wading, barefoot, a' her lane : 
My heart grew light, I ran, I flang 

IMy arms about her lily neck. 
And kiss'd and clapp'd her there fou lang ; 

]\Iy words they were na mony, feck. 

I said, my lassie, will ye go 

To the highland hills, the Earse to learn ? 
I'd baith gi'e thee a cow and ew, 

When ye come to the brigg of Earn. 
At Leith, auld meal comes in, ne'er fash, 

And herrings at the Broomy Law ; 
Chear up your heart, my bonny lass. 

There's gear to win we never saw. 

All day when we have wrought enough. 

When winter, frosts, and snaw begin. 
Soon as the sun gaes west the loch. 

At night when you sit down to spin, 
I'll screw my pipes and play a spring : 

And thus the weary night will end. 
Till the tender kid and lamb-time bring / 

Our pleasant summer back again, 



SONGS. 



179 



Syne when the trees are in their hlooni, 

And gowans glent o'er ilka field, 
I'll meet my lass among the broom, 

And lead you to my summer-shield. 
Then far frae a' their scornfu' din. 

That make the kindly hearts their sport, 
We'll laugh and kiss, and dance and sing, 

And gar the langest day seem short. 



THE BIRKS OF INVERMAY.* 

DAVID MALLET. 

T*une—" The Birks of Invennay." 

The smiling morn, the breathing spring, 

Invite the tunefu' birds to sing ; 

And, while they warble from the spray, 

Love melts the universal lay. 

Let us, Amanda, timely wise, 

Like them, improve the hour that flics ; 

And in soft raptures waste the day, 

Among the birks of Invermay. 

For soon the winter of the year, 
And age, life's winter, will appear ; 
At tliis thy living bloom will fade, 
As that will strip the verdant shade. 
Our taste of pleasure then is o'er. 
The feather'd songsters are no more ; 
And when they drop, and we decay, 
Adieu the birks of Invermay ! 



Hr>\v ha])pv, he cried, my moments once flew. 
Ere Chloe's bright charms first flash'd in my 

view ! 
Those e\'es then wi' pleasure the dawn could 

survey ; 
Nor smiled the fair morning mair cheerful than 

they. 
Now scenes of distress please only my sight ; 
I'm tortured in jileasure, and languish in light. 

Through changes in vain relief I pursue, 
All, all but conspire my griefs to renew ; 
From sunshine to zephyrs and shades we repair- 
To sunshine we fly from too piercing an air ; 
But love's ardent fire burns always the same. 
No winter can cool it, no summer inflame. 

But see the pale moon, all clouded, retires ; 
The breezes grow cool, not Strephon's desires : 
I fly from the dangers of tempest and wind, 
Yet nourish the madness that preys on my mind. 
Ah, wretch : how can life be worthy thy care ? 
To lengthen its moments, but lengthens despair. • 



THE BRAES O' BALLENDEAN. 

DR. BLACKLOCK. 

Tune—" The Braes o' Ballendean." 

Beneath a green shade, a lovely young swain 
Ae evening reclined, to discover his pain ; 
So sad, yet so sweetlj', he warbled his woe, 
The winds ceased to breathe, and the fountain to 

flow ; 
Rude winds wi' compassion could hear him 

complain, 
Yet Chloe, less gentle, was deaf to 'nis strain. 



* Invermay is a small woody p;len, watered by the 
ri^1^1et May, which there joins the river Earn. It is 
about five miles above the bridire of Earn, and nearly 
nine from Perth. The seat of Mr. Belsches, the pro- 
prietor of this poetical rc<;ion, a!i(I who takes from it 
his territorial designation, stands at the bottom of the 
glen. Both sides of the little vale are comiiletely wood- 
ed, chiefly with birches; and it is altogether, in point 
of natural loveliness, a scene worthy of the attention 
of the amatory muse. The course of the May is so 
sunk among rocks, that it cannot be seen, but it can 
easily be traced in its progress by another sense. The 
peculiar sound which it makes in rushing through one 
particular part of its narrow, rugged, and tortuous 
channel, has occasioned the descriptive appellation of 
the Humble-Bumble to be attached to that quarter of 
the vale. Invermay may be at once and correctly de- 
scribed as the fairest possible little miniature specimen 
of cascade scenery. 

The song appeared in the 1th volume of the Tea- 
Table Miscellany. 



THE BRUME O' THE COWDEN- 
KNOWES. 

Tune — " The Brume o' the Cowdenknowes." 

How blyth, ilk morn, was I to see 

INIy swain come ov/er the hill ! 
He skipt the burn and flew to me : 
I met him with good will. 

Oh, the brmne, the bonnie, bonnie hrume ! 

The brume o' the Cowdenknowes ! 
I wish I ivere with my dear swain. 
With his pipe and my yowes. 

I wanted neither yowe nor lamb, 

While his flock near me lay ; 
He gather'd in my sheep at night, 

And cheer 'd me a' the day. 

Oh, the brume, ^c. 

He tuned his pipe, and play'd sae sweet, 

The birds sat listening bye ; 
E'en the dull cattle stood and gazed, 

Charm 'd with the melodye. 

Oh, the brume, 8fc. 

While thus we spent our time, by turns. 

Betwixt our flocks and play, 
I envied not the fairest dame, 

Though e'er so rich or gay. 

Oh, the brume, § r. 



♦ The celebrated Tenducei used to sing this song, 
with great effect, in St. Cpcilia's Hall, at Edinburgh, 
about fifty years ago. Mr. Tytler, who was a great na- 
tron of that obsolete place of amusement, says, in his 
Dissertation on Scottish Music, " Who could hear 
with insensibility, or without being moved in the high- 
est degree, Tenducei sing, ' I'll never leave thee,' or, 
' The Braes o' Balleudean.' The air was composed by 
Oswald. 



180 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Hard fate, that I should bauish'd be, 
Gang heavily, and mourn. 

Because I loved the kindest swain 
That ever yet was burn. 

Oh, the bnime, Sfc. 

He did oblige me every hour ; 

Could I but faithful be ? 
He stawe my heart ; could I refuse 

Whate'er he ask'd of me ? 

Oh, the brume, §*c. 

My doggie, and my little kit 
That held my wee soup whey, 

My plaidie, brooch, and crookit stick, 
May now lie useless by. 

Oh, the brume, ^c. 

Adieu, ye Cowdenknowes, adieu ! 

Fareweel, a' pleasures there ! 
Ye gods, restore me to my swain — > 

Is a* I crave or care. 

Oh, the brume, 8fc.* 



THE CARLE HE CAM OWER THE 
CRAFT. 

Tune—" The Carle he cam ower the Craft." 

The carle he cam ower the craft, 

Wi' his beard new-shaven ; 
He looked at me as he'd been daft, — 

The carle trowed that I wad hae him. 
Hout awa ! I winna hae him ! 

^a, forsooth, I winna hae him ! 
For a' his beard new-shaven, 

Ne'er a bit o' me will hae him. 

A siller brooch he gae me neist, 

To fasten on my curchie nookit ; 
I wore 't a wee upon my breist, 

But soon, alake ! the tongue o't crookit j 
And sae may his ; I winna hae him ! 

Na, forsooth, I winna hae him ! 
Twice-a-bairn's a lassie's jest ; 

Sae ony fool for me may hae him. 

The carle has nae fault but ane ; 

For he has land and dollars plenty ; 
But, wae's me for him, skin and bane 

Is no for a plump lass of twenty. 
Hout awa, I winna hae him ! 

Na, forsooth, I winna hae him ! 
What signifies his dirty riggs. 

And cash, without a man wi* them ? 



♦ As the reader may be supposed anxious to know 
something of the place v/hich has thus been the subject 
of so much poetry, theeditor thinks it proper to inform 
him, that, •* the Cowdenknowes," or, as sometimes 
spelled in old writings, the Coldingknowes, are two 
little hills on the east side of the vale of Lauderdale, 
Berwickshire. They lie immediately to the south of 
the village of Earlston, celebrated as the residence of 
the earliest kDO>Yn SwttisJi poet, Thomas the Rhymer. 



But should my cankevt daddie gar 

Me tak him 'gainst my inclination, 
1 warn the fumbler to beware 

That antlers dinna claim their station. 
Hout awa ! I winna hae him ! 

Na, forsooth, I winna hae him ! 
I'm flee'd to crack the haly band, 

Sae lawty says, I shou'd na hae him. 



THE WEE THING. 

MACNEIL. 

Tune—" Bonnie Dundee." 

Saw ye my wee thing? saw ye my ain thing? 

Saw ye my true love down on yon lea? 
Cross'd she the meadow yestreen at the gloam- 
in' ? 
Sought she the burnie whar flow'rs the haw- 
tree ? 

Fler hair it is lint-white ; her skin it is milk- 
white ; 

Dark is the blue o' her saft-rolling ee ; 
Red red her ripe lips, and sweeter than roses : 

Whar could my wee thing wander frae me ? — 

I saw nae your wee thing, I saw nae your ain 
thing. 
Nor saw I your true love down on yon lea ; 
But I met my bonnie thing late in the gloamin, 
Down by the burnie whar flow'rs the haw- 
tree. 

Her hair it was lint-white ; her skin it was 
milk-white ; 

Dark was the blue o' her saft-rolling ee ; 
Red were her ripe lips, and sweeter than roses ; 

Sweet were the kisses that she gae to me ! — 

It was na my wee thing, it was na my ain 
thing, 

It was na my true love ye met by the tree : 
Proud is her leal heart ! and modest her nature ! 

She never loed onie till auce she loed me. 

Her name it is Mary ; she's frae Castle- Gary ; 

Aft has she sat, when a bairn, on my knee : 
Fair as your face is, war't fifty times fairer, 

Young bragger, she ne'er would gie kisses to 
thee ! — 

It was, then, your Mary; she's frae Castle- 
Cary; 
It was, then, your true love I met by the 
tree: 
Proud as her heart is, and modest her nature. 
Sweet were the kisses that she gae to me. — 

Sair gloom'd his dark brow — blood-red his 
cheek grew — 
Wild flftshM the fire frae his red-rolling ee ' 



SONGS. 



181 



Ye'se rue sair, this morning, your boasts and 
your scorninq; : 
Defend ye, fause traitor ! for loudly ye lie. — . 

Awa wi' beguiling ! cried the youth, smiling : 
Aff went the bonnet; the lint-white locks 
flee; 
The belted plaid fa'ing, her white bosom shaw- 
ing — 
Fair stood the loved maid wi' the dark-roll- 
ing ee ! 

Is it my wee thing ! is it mine ain thing ! 

Is it my true love here that I see ! — 
O Jamie, forgie me ; your heart's constant to 

me ; 
I'll never mair wander, dear laddie, frae thee ! 



THE WHITE COCKADE. 

Tune—*' The White Cockade." 

!My love was born in Aberdeen, 
The bonniest lad that e'er was seen ; 
But now he makes our hearts fu' sad-— 
He's ta'en the field wi' his white cockade. 

O, lies a ranting roving blade ! 

O, he's a brisk and a bonny lad ! 

Betide what may, my heart is glad 

To see my lad wV his white cockade. 

O, leeze me on the philabeg, 
The hairy hough, and garter'd leg ! 
But aye the thing that glads my ee, 
Is the white cockade aboon the bree. 
O, he's a ranting, Sfc. 

I'll sell my rock, I'll sell my reel. 
My rippling kame, and spinning wheel, 
To buy my lad a tartan plaid, 
A braidsword and a white cockade. 
O, he's a ranting, ^c. 

I'll sell my rokely and my tow. 
My gude grey mare and hawket cow. 
That every loyal Buchan lad 
May tak the field wi' his white cockade. 
O, he's a ranting, §-c. 



THE WIDOW. 

ALLAN RAMSAY. 

The widow can bake, and the widow can brew, 
The widow can shape, and the widow can sew. 
And mony braw things the widow can do ; 

Then have at the widow, my laddie. 
Wirh courage attack her, baith early and late : 
To kiss her and clap her ye maunna be blate : 
jSpeak well, and do better j for that's the best 
gate 
_ To win 9, young widow, my laddi?. 



The widow she's youthfu', and never ae hair 
The waur of the wearing, and has a good skair 
Of every thing lovely ; she's witty and fair. 

And has a rich jointure, my laddie. 
What could ye ^vish better, your pleasure to 

crown, 
Than a widow, the bonniest toast in the town, 
With, Naething but — draw in your stool and sit 
down, 

And sport with the widow, my laddie. 

Then till her, and kill her with courtesie dead, 
Though stark love and kindness be all you can 



Be heartsome and airy, and hope to succeed 
With the bonnie gay widow, my laddie. 

Strike iron while 'tis het, if ye'd have it to 
wald ; 

For fortune ay favours the active and bauld, 

But ruins the wooer that's thowless and cauld, 
Unfit for the widow, my laddie. 



THE YELLOW-HAIR'D LADDIE. 

OLD VERSES. 

Tune—'" The yellow-hair'd Laddie." 

The yellow-hair'd laddie sat down on yon brae, 
Cried, Milk the yowes, lassie, let nane o' them 

gae; 
And aye as she mllkit, she merrily sang. 
The yellow-hair'd laddie shall be my gudeman. 
And aye as she milkit, she merrily sang, 
The yellow-hair'd laddie shall be my gttdc' 



The weather is cauld, and my cleadin is thin, 
The yowes are new dipt, and they winna bucht 

in J 
They winna bucht in, although I should dee : 
Oh, yellow-haird'd laddie, be kind unto me. 
And aye as she milkit, Sfc. 

The gudewife cries butt the house, Jennie, come 

ben ; 
The cheese is to mak, and the butter's to kirn. 
Though butter, and cheese, and a' should gang 

sour, 
I'll crack and I'll kiss wi' my love ae half hour. 
It's ae lang half hour, and toe'll e'en mak it 

three, 
For the yellow-haired laddie my gudeman 
shall be.* 



From the Tea-Table Miscellany, 1721. 



182 



BURNS* WORKS. 



THE YOUNG LAIRD AND EDINBURGH 
KATIE. 



Tune—" Tartan Screen." 

Now wat ye wlia I met yestreen, 

Coming down the street, my joe ? 
My mistress, in her tartan screen, 

Fu' bonnie, braw, and sweet, my joe ! 
My dear, quoth I, thanks to the nicht 

That never wiss'd a lover ill, 
Sin' ye're out o' your mither's sicht, 

Let's tak' a walk up to the hill.* 

Oh, Katie, wilt thou gang wi' me, 

And leave the dinsome toun a while ? 
The blossom's sprouting frae the tree, 

And a' creation's gaun to smile. 
The mavis, nichtingale, and lark, 

The bleating lambs and whistling hynd, 
In ilka dale, green shaw, and park, 

Will nourish health, and glad your mind. 

Sune as the clear gudeman o' day 

Does bend his mornin' draught o' dew, 
We'll gae to some burn-side and play. 

And gather flouirs to busk your brow. 
We'll pou the daisies on the green. 

The lucken-gowans frae the bog ; 
Between hands, now and then, we'll lean 

And sport upon the velvet fog. 

There 's, up into a pleasant glen, 

A wee piece frae my father's tower, 
A canny, saft, and flowery den. 

Which circling birks have form'd a bower. 
Whene'er the sun grows high and warm, 

We'll to the caller shade remove ; 
There will I lock thee in my arm, 

And love and kiss, and kiss and love. 



MY MOTHER'S AYE GLOWRTN' OWER 

ME; 

IN ANSWER TO THE YOUNG LAIRD AND 
EDINBURGH KATY. 

RAMSAY. 

Tune — " My Mother's aye glowrin' ower me." 

My mother's aye glowrin' ower me. 
Though she did the same before me ; 



* It is quite as remarkable as it is true, that the 
mode of courtship among people of the middle ranks 
in Edinburgh has undergone a complete change in the 
course of no more than the last thirty years. It used 
to be customary for lovers to walk together for hours, 
both during the day and the evening, in Ihe Meadows, 
or the King's Park, or the fields now oe<'npied by the 
New Town ; practices now only known to artizans and 
serving-girls. 

The song appeared in tlic Tca-Table Miscellany, 
1721. 



I canna get leave 
To look at my love, 
Or else she'd be like to devour me. 

Right fain wad I tak' your offer. 
Sweet Sir — but I'll tyne my tocher ; 
Then, Sandy, ye'U fret, 
And wyte your puir Kate, 
Whene'er ye keek in your toom coffer. 

For though my father has plenty 
Of silver, and plenishing dainty, 

Yet he's unco sweir 

To twine wi' his gear ; 
And sae we had need to be tenty. 

Tutor my parents wi' caution, 

Be wylie in ilka motion ; 

Brag weel o' your land. 
And, there's my leal hand, 

Win them, I'll be at your devotion. 



WANDERING WILLIE. 

OLD VERSES. 
Tune—" Wandering Willie." 

Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie ! 

Here awa, there awa, baud awa harae ! 
Lang have I sought thee, dear have I bought 
thee ; 

Now I have gotten my Willie again. 

Through the lang muir I have followed my 
Willie ; 
Through the lang muir I have followed him 
hame. 
Whatever betide us, nought shall divide us ; 
Love now rewards all my sorrow and pain. 

Here awa, there awa, here awa, Willie ! 

Here awa, there awa, here awa, hame ! 
Come, love, believe me, nothing can grieve me, 

Ilka thing pleases, when Willie's at hame.* 



CAM' YE O'ER FRAE FRANCE. 

Cam' ye o'er frae France, came ye doun by 

Lunnon, 
Saw ye Geordie Whelps and his bonny woman. 
War' ye at the place ca'd the kittle-housie. 
Saw ye Geordie's grace, ridin' on a goosie. 

Geordie he's a man, there is little doubt o't, 
He's done a' he can, wha can do without it ; 
Down there cam' a blade, linkin' like a lordie, 
He wad drive a trade at the loom o' Geordie. f 



* From Herd's Collection, 1776. 
t This plainJy alludes to Count Koningsmark and 
the Queen. 



SONGS. 



183 



Tho' the claitli were bad, blythely may vve uiffer, 
Giu we get a wab, it mak's little diffei- ; 
We hae tint our plaid, bonnet, belt and swordie, 
Ha's and maillins braid, but we hae a Geordie. 

Hey for Sandy Don, hey for cockolorum, 

Hey for Bobbin' John and his Highland quo- 
rum ; 

Many a sword and lance swings at Highland 
hurdie, 

How they'll skip and dance o'er the bum o' 
Geordie. 



THE HIGHLAND LADDIE. 

ANOTHER SET. 

The lawland lads think they are fine ; 

But O they're vain and idly gaudy ! 
How much unlike that gracefu' mien, 

And manly looks of my highland laddie ? 

my bonny, honny highland laddie, 
My handsome, charming Jiigldand laddie ; 
May heaven still guard, and love reward 

Our lawland lass and her highland laddie. 

If I were free at will to chuse 

To be the wealthiest lawland lady, 

I'd take young Donald without trews, 
With bonnet blue, and belted plaidy. 
O my honny, 8fc. 

The brawest beau in borrows-town, 
In a' his airs, with art made ready, 

Compar'd to him, he's but a clown ; 
He's finer far in's tartan plaidy. 
O my bonny, Sfc. 

O'er benty hill with him I'll run. 

And leave my lawland kin and dady ; 

Frae winter's cauld, and summer's sun. 
He'll screen me with his highland plaidy. 
O my bonny, §*c. 

A painted room, and silken bed. 

May please a lawland laird and lady ; 

But I can kiss, and be as glad. 

Behind a bush in's highland plaidy. 
O my bonny, Sfc. 

Few compliments between us pass, 

1 ca' him my dear highland laddie, 
And he ca's me his lawland lass. 

Syne rows me in beneath his plaidy. 
O my bonny, 8fc, 

Nae greater joy I'll e'er pretend. 

Than thit his love prove true and steady, 

Like mine to him, which ne'er shall end, 
While heaven preserves my highland laddie. 
O my bonny, §-c. 



JENNY NETTLES. 

Saw ye Jenny Nettles, 

Jenny Nettles, Jenny Nettles, 
Saw ye Jenny Nettles 

Coming frae the market ? 
Bag and baggage on her back. 

Her fee and bountith in her lap ; 
Bag and baggage ou her back. 

And a babie in her oxter ? 

I met ayont the kairny, 

Jenny Nettles, Jenny Nettles, 
Singing till her bairny, 

Robin Rattle's bastard ; 
To flee the dool upo' the stool, 

And ilka ane that mocks her, 
She round about seeks Robin out, 

To stap it in his oxter 

Fy, fy ! Robin Rattle, 

Robin Rattle, Robin Rattle ; 
Fy, fy ! Robin Rattle, 

Use Jenny Nettles kindly : 
Score out the blame, and shun the shame. 

And without mair debate o't, 
Tak hame your wean, make Jenny fain 

The leel and leesome gate o't. 



O MERRY MAY THE MAID BE. 

SIR JOHN CLERK OF PENNYCUICK. 

Tune-~" Merry may the Maid be." 

O, MERRY may the maid be 

That marries the miller ! 
For, foul day or fair day. 

He's aye bringing till her. 
H'as aye a penny in his pouch. 

For dinner or for supper ; 
Wi' beef, and pease, and melting cheese, 

An' lumps o' yellow butter. 

Behind the door stands bags o' meal,' 

And in the ark is plenty, 
And good hard cakes his mither bakes, 

And mony a sweeter dainty. 
A good fat sow, a sleeky cow, 

Are standing in the byre ; 
Whilst winking puss, wi' mealy mou, 

Is playing round the fire. 

Good signs are these, my mither says, 

And bids me take the miller ; 
A miller's wife's a merry wife. 

And he's aye bringing till her. 
For meal or maut she'll never want. 

Till wood and water's scanty ; 
As lang's there's cocks and clockin' hens, 

She'll aye hae eggs in plenty. 



184^ 



BURNS' WORKS. 



THE TAILOR. 

The Tailor fell thro' the bed thimbles an' a', 
The Tailor fell thro' the bed thimbles an' a', 
The blankets were thin and the sheets they were 

sma', 
The Tailor fell thro' the bed thimbles an' a'. 

The lassie was sleepy and thought on nae ill ; 
The weather was cauld and the lassie lay still ; 
The ninth part o' manhood may sure hae its 

will; 
She kent weel the TaUor could do her nae ill. 

The TaUor grew droosy, and thought in a 

dream, 
How he caulked out the claith, and then felled 

in the seam ; 
A while ayont midnight, before the cocks craw, 
The TaUor fell thro' the bed thimbles an' a*. 

The day it has come, and the nicht it has gone. 
Said the bonnie young lassie when sighing 

alane : 
Since men are but scant, it wad gee me nae 

pain. 
To see the bit Tailor come skippin again. 



AWA, WHIGS, AWA! 

JACOBXTE SONG. 

Tuno-J" Awa, Whigs, awa!" 

Our thistles flourish'd fresh and fair, 

And bonny bloom'd our roses, 
But Whigs came, like a frost in June, 
And wither'd a' oujr posies. 
Awa^ Whigs, awa! 

Awa, Whigs, awa ! 
Ye re hut a pack o' traitor loons ; 
Yie'// ne'er do good at a*. 

Our sad decay in church and state 

Surpasses my descriving ; 
The Whigs came o'er us for a curse, 

And we have done wi' thriving. 

Awa, Whigs ! awa, 8fc. 

A foreign Whiggish loon bought seeds, 

In Scottish yird to cover ; 
But we'll pu' a' his dibbled leeks. 

And pack him to Hanover. 

Awa, WJiigs ! awa, §-c. 

Our ancient crown's fa'n i' the dust, 
Deil blind them wi' the stour o't ! 

And write their names in his black beuk, 
Wha ga'e the \Vhigs the power o't ! 
Awa, Whigs ! aiva, ^x. 



Grim Vengeance lang has ta'en a nap, 

But we may see him wauken : 
Gude help the day, when royal heads 

Are hunted like a maukin ! 

Awa, Whigs/ awa, §*c. 

The dell he heard the stour o' tongues. 
And ramping came amang us ; 

But he pitied us, sae cursed wi' Whigs, — 
He turn'd and wadna wrang lus. 

Awa, Whigs ! awa, §-c. 

Sae grim he sat amang the reek, 

Thrang bundling brimstone matches ; 
And croon'd, 'mang the beak-taking Whigs, 
Scraps of auld Calvin's catches. 
Aica, Whigs, awa ! 

Awa, Whigs, awa ! 
Ye'll riri me out o' wu7i spunks, 
And ne'er do good at a\ 



LOCH-NA-GARR. 

BYRON. 

Away ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses. 
In you let the minions of luxury rove ; 
Restore me the rocks where the snow-flake re- 
poses. 
If still tliey are sacred to freedom and love. 
Yet, Caleilonia, dear are thy mountaijis. 
Round their white summits tho' elements war, 
Tho' cataracts foam, 'stead of smooth flowing 

fountains, 
I sigh for the valley of dark Loch-na-gaiT. 

Shades of the dead ! have I heard your voices 

Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale. 

Surely the soul of the hero rejoices. 

And I ides on the wind, o'er his own Highland 
dale. 

Round Loch-na-gaiT, while the stormy mist ga- 
thers, 

Winter presides in his cold icy car ; 

Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers, 

They dwell 'mid the tempests of dark Loch- 
na-garr. 



THE MERRY IVIEN, O. 

When I was red, and ripe, and crouse. 
Ripe and crouse, ripe and crouse, 

My father built a wee house, a wee house, 
To hand me frae the men, O. 

There came a lad and gac a shout, 
Gae a shout, gae a shout, 



SONGS. 



185 



The wa's fell in, and I fell out, 
Amaug the merry men, O. 

I dream sic sweet things in ray sleep, 

In my sleep, in my sleep, 
My minny says I winna keep, 

Amang sae mony men, O. 
When plums are ripe, they should be poo'd, 

Should be poo'd, should be poo'd, 
When maids are ripe, they should be woo'd 

At seven years and ten, O. 

My love, I cried it, at the port. 

At the port, at the port, 
The captain bade a guinea for't, 

The colonel he bade ten, O. 
The chaplain he bade siller for't, 

Siller for't, siller for't, 
But the sergeant bade me naething for't. 

Yet he cam farthest ben, O. 



KENMURE'S ON AND AWA, WILLIE. 

Tune—" Kcnmure's on and awa." 

O, Kenmure's on and awa, Willie, 

O, Kenmure's on and awa ; 
And Kenmure's lord's the bravest lord 

That ever Galloway saw. 

Succes to Kenmure's band, Willie, 

Success to Kenmure's band ! 
There's no a heart that fears a Whig, 

That rides by Kenmure's hand. 

Here's Kenmure's health in wine, Willie, 
Here's Kenmure's health in wine ! 

There ne'er was a coward o' Kenmure's blude. 
Nor yet o' Gordon's line. 

O, Kenmure's lads are men, Willie, 

O, Kenmure's lads are men ! 
Their hearts and swords are metal true ; 

And that their faes shall ken. 

They'll live or die wi' fame, Willie, 

They'll live or die wi' fame ; 
But sune wi' sound and victorie 

May Kenmure's lord come hame ! 

Here's him that's far awa, Willie, 

Here's him that's far awa ; 
And here's the flower that I lo'e best,. 

The rose that's like the snaw. 



POLWART ON THE GREEN. 

At Polwart on the green. 
If you'll meet me the morn, 

Where lasses do convene 
To dance about the thorn, 



A kindly welcome you shall meet 
Frac her wha likes to view 

A lover and a lad complete. 
The lad and lover you. 

Let dorty dames say Na, 

As lang as e'er they please, 
Seem caulder than the sna', 

W hile inwardly they bleeze ; 
But I will frankly shaw my mind. 

And yield my heart to thee ; 
Be ever to the captive kind. 

That langs na to be free. 

At Polwart on the green, 

Amang the new-mawn hay, 
With sangs and dancing keen 

We'll pass the heartsome day. 
At night, if beds be o'er thrang laid. 

And thou be twin'd of thine. 
Thou shalt be welcome, my dear lad, 

To take a part of mine. 



HAME NEVER CAME HE. 

Saddled, and bridled, and booted rode he, 
A plume in his helmet, a sword at his knee ; 
But toom cam' the saddle, all bluidy to see. 
And hame cam' the steed, but hame never cam' 
he. 

Down cam' his gray father, sabbin* sae sair, 
Down cam' his auld niither, tearing her hair, 
Down cam' his sweet wife wi' bonnie bairns 

three, 
Ane at her bosom, and twa at her knee. 

There stood the fleet steed all foamin' and hot, 
There shriek'd his sweet wife, and sank on the 

spot. 
There stood his gray father, weeping sae free. 
So hame cam' his steed, but hame never cam' 

he. 



THE BOB OF DUMBLANE. 

Lassie, lend me your braw hemp heckle, 

And I'll lend you my thripling kame ; 
For fainness, deary, I'll gar ye keckle. 

If ye'll go dance the Bob of Dumblane. 
Haste ye, gang to the ground of your trunkies, 

Busk ye braw, and dinna think shame ; 
Consider in time, if leading of monkies 

Be better than dancing the Bob of Dumblane. 

Be frank, my lassie, lest I grow fickle, 
And take my word and offer again, 

Syne ye may chance to repent it mickle, 
Ye did na accept the Bob of Dumblane. 



186 



BURNS' WORKS. 



The dinner, the piper, and priest shall be ready, 
And I'm grown dowy with lying my lane ; 

Away then, leave baith miuny and dady, 
And try with me the Bob of Dumblaue. 



LOCHABER NO MORE. 

Tune—^" Lochaber no more." 

Farewell to Lochaber, and farewell ray Jean, 
V/here heartsome with thee I've mouy day been ; 
For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more, 
We'll may be return to Lochaber no more. 
These tears that I shed, they are a' for my dear, 
And no for the dangers attending on weir, 
Tho' bore on rougli seas to a far bloody shore, 
May be to return to Lochaber no more. 

Tho' hurricanes rise, and rise ev'ry wind. 
They'll ne'er make a tempest like that in my 

mind. 
Tho' loudest of thunder on louder waves roar, 
That's naethlng like leaving my love on the shore. 
To leave thee behind me my heart is sair paiu'd, 
By ease that's inglorious, no fame can begaiu'd. 
And beauty and love's the reward of the brave, 
And I must deserve it before I can crave. 



Then glory, my Jeany, maun plead my excuse, 
Since honour commands me, how can I refuse ? 
Without it I ne'er can have merit for thee. 
And without thy favour I'd better not be. 
I gae then, my lass, to win honour and fame, 
And if I should luck to come gloriously hame, 
I'll bring a heart to thee with love runuing o'er, 
And then I'll leave thee and Lochaber no more. 



JOCKY SAID TO JEANY. 

JocKY said to Jeany, Jeany, wilt thou do't ? 
Ne'er a fit, quo' Jeanv, for my tocher -good, 
For my tocher-good, I winna marry thee. 
E'ens ye like, quo' Jockey, ye may let it be. 

I hae gowd and gear, I hae land enough, 
I hae seven good owsen ganging in a pleugh, 
Ganging in a pleugh, and linking o'er the lee, 
And gin ye winna tak me, I can let ye be. 

I hae a good ha' house, a barn and a byre, 
A stack afore the door, I'll make a rantin fire, 
I'll make a rantin fire, and merry shall we be : 
And gin ye winna tak me, I can let ye be. 

Jeany said to Jocky, Gin ye winna tell, 
Ye shall be the lad, I'll be the lass mysell. 
Ye're a bonny lad, and I'm a lassie free, 
Ye're welcomer to tak me than to let me be. 



THE LOWLANDS OF HOLLAND. 

ANOTHER VERSION, 

The luve that I hae chosen 

I'll therewith be content ; 
The saut sea will be frozen 

Before that I repent ; 
Repent it will I never 

Until the day I die, 
Though the Lowlands of Holland 

Hae twined my love and me. 

My luve lies in the saut sea, 

And I am on the side ; 
Enough to break a young thing's heart 

Wha lately was a bride — 
Wha lately was a happy bride, 

And pleasure in her ee ; 
But the Lowlands of Holland 

Hae twined my love and me. 

Oh ! Holland is a barren place, 

In it there grows nae grain. 
Nor ony habitation 

Wherein for to remain ; 
But the sugar canes are plenty, 

And the wine draps frae the tree ; 
But the Lowlands of Holland 

Hae twined my love and me. 

My love he built a bonnie ship. 

And sent her to the sea, 
Wi' seven score guid mariners 

To bear her com panic. 
Three score to the bottom gaed. 

And three score died at sea ; 
And the Lowlands of Holland 

Hae twined my love and me. 



JENNY DANG THE WEAVER. 

Jenny lap, and Jenny flang, 

Jenny dang the weaver ; 
The piper played as Jenny sprang, 

An' aye she dang the weaver. 

As I cam in by Fisherrow, 

Musselburgh was near me, 
I threw aflF the mussel-pock. 

And courtit wi' my deerie. 

Had Jenny's apron bidden down 
The kirk wad ne'er hae ken'd it ; 

But now the word 's gane thro' the town, 
The devil canna mend it. 

Jenny lap, and Jenny flang, 

Jenny dang the weaver ; 
The piper played as Jenny sprang, 

And aye she dang the weaver. 



SONGS. 



187 



AS I WENT OUT AE MAY MORNING. 

As I went out ae IMaj- morning, 

Ae May morning it happened to be, 

there I saw a very bonnie lass 
Come linkin' o'er the lea to me. 

And O she was a weel-faud lass, 

Sweet as the flower sae newly sprung ; 

1 said, fair maid, an' ye fancy me, 

When she laughing said, I am too young. 

To be your bride I am too young, 

And far our proud to be your loon ; 
This is the merry month of May, 

But I'll be aulder, Sir, in June. 
The hawthorns flourished fresh and fair, 

And o'er our heads the small birds sing, 
And never a word the lassie said, 

But, gentle Sir, I am too young. 



THE WEE, WEE GERMAN LAIRDIE. 

Wha the deil hae we gotten for a king. 
But a wee, wee Geiraan lairdie ? 

And, when we gaed to bring him, 
He was delving in his yardie : 

Sheughing kail, and laying leeks. 

But the hose, and but the breeks ; 

And up his beggar duds he cleeks — 
This wee, wee German lairdie. 

And he's clapt down in our guderaan's chair. 

The wee, wee German lairdie ; 
And he's brought fouth o' foreign trash, 

And dibbled them in his yardie. 
He's pu'd the rose o' English loons, 
And broken the harp o' Irish clowns ; 
But our thistle taps will jag his thumbs — 

This wee, wee German lairdie. 

Come up amang our Highland hills, 

Thou wee, wee German lairdie. 
And see the Stuart's lang-kail thrive 

We dibbled in our yardie : 
And if a stock ye dare to pu', 
Or baud the yoking o' a plough, 
We'll break your sceptre o'er your mou*, 

Thou wee bit German lairdie. 

Our hills are steep, our glens are deep, 

Nae fitting for a yardie ; 
And our Norland thistles winna pu', 

Thou wee bit German lairdie : 
And we've the trenching blades o' weir. 
Wad prime ye o' your German gear — 



We'll pass ye 'neath the claymore's shear , 
Thou feckless German lairdie ! 

Auld Scotland, thou'rt ower cauld a hole 

For nursin' siccan vermin ; 
But the very dougs o' England's court 

They bark and howl in German. 
Then keep thy dibble in thy ain hand, 

Thy spade but and thy yardie ; 
For wha the deil hae we gotten for a king, 

But a wee, wee German laiidie ? 



THE FORAY. 

SIR WALTER SCOTT, 

The last of our steers on the board has been 

spread. 
And the last flask of wine in our goblets is red : 
Up, up, my brave kinsmen ! — belt swords and 

begone ; 
There are dangers to dare, and there's spoil to 

won ! 

The eyes that so lately mixed glances with ours, 
For a space must be dim, as they gaze from the 

towers. 
And strive to distinguish, through tempest and 

gloom, 
The prance of the steeds and the top of the 

2^1 u me. 

The rain is descending, the wind rises loud, 
The moon her red beacon has veiled with a 

cloud — 
'Tis the better, my mates, for the warder's dull 

eye 
Shall in confidence slumber, nor dream we are 

nigh. 

Our steeds are impatient — I hear my blythe 

grey; 

There is life in his hoof-clang and hope in his 
neigh ; 

Like the flash of a meteor, the glance of his 
mane 

Shall marshal your march through the dark- 
ness and rain. 

The draw-bridge has dropped, and the bugle 

has blown ; 
One pledge is to quafi" yet — then mount and 

begone : 
To their honour and peace that shall rest with 

the slain ! 
To their health and their glee that see Tevlot 

again ! 



188 



BURNS'S SONGS. 



ADIEU ! A HE ART- WARM FOND ADIEU! 

Tune—<' The Peacock." 

Adieu ! a heart -warm fond adieu ! 

Dear brothers of the mystic tie ! 
Ye favour 'd, ye enJighten'd few, 

Companions of my social joy ! 
Though I to foreign lands must hie. 

Pursuing Fortune's sliddry ba', 
With melting heart, and brimful eye, 

I'll mind you still, though far awa'. 

Oft have I met your social band, 

And spent the cheerful festive night ; 
Oft, honour'd with supreme command, 

Presided o'er the sons of light ; 
And by that hieroglyphic bright, 

Which none but craftsmen ever saw ! 
Strong memory on my heart shall write 

Those happy scenes when far awa I 

May freedom, harmony, and love, 

Unite vou in the grand design, 
Beneath the Omniscient Eye above, 

The glorious architect divine ! 
That you may keep th' unerring line, 

Still rising by the plummet's law, 
Till order bright completely shine — 

Shall be my prayer when far awa. 

And you, farewell I whose merits claim, 

Justly, that highest badge to wear ! 
Heaven bless your honour'd, noble name, 

To masonry and Scotia dear ! 
A last request permit me here. 

When yearly ye assemble a', 
One round, I ask it with a tear. 

To him, the bard, that's far awa.* 



AE FOND KISS. 

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; 

Ae farewell, alas, for ever ! 

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 

War in sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 



* Written as a sort of farewell to the Masonic com- 
panions of Ills vouth, when the poet was on the point 
of leaving Scotland for Jamaica, ] 786. 



Who shall say that fortune grieves him, 
While the star of hope she leaves him ? 
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me ; 
Dark despair around benights me. 

I'll ne'er blame thy partial fancy, 
Naething could resist my Nancy ; 
But to see her, was to love her ; 
Love but her, and love for ever. 
Had we never loved sae kindly, 
Had we never loved sae blindly ; 
Never met — or never parted. 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted. 

Fare thee well, thou first and fairest ! 
Fare thee well, thou best and dearest ! 
Thine be ilka joy and treasure. 
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure ! 
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; 
Ae farewell, alas, for ever ! 
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee. 
War in sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 



AFTON WATER. 

Tune—" The Yellow-hair'd Laddie." 

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green 

braes. 
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise ; 
]My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream ; 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 

Thou stock-dove, whose echo resounds through 
the glen. 

Ye wild-whistling blackbirds, in yon flowery- 
den, 

Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming for- 
bear, 

I charge you, disturb not my slumbering fair. 

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills, 
Far mark'd with the courses of clear-winding 

rills ; 
There daily I wander, as morn rises high, 
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. 

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below. 
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow; 
There oft, as mild evening creeps o'er the lea. 
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. 



SONGS. 



189 



Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides, 
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides ! 
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave, 
As, gath'ring sweet flow'rets, she stems thy 
clear wave ! 

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green 

braes ; 
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays ; 
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream ; 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 



AGAIN REJOICING NATURE SEES. 

Tune—" Johnnie's Grey Breeks." 

Again rejoicing nature sees 

Her robe assume its vernal hues ; 

Her leafy locks wave in the breeze. 
All freshly steep'd in morning dews. 

In vain to me the cowslips blaw ; 

In vain to me the vi'lets spring ; 
In vain to me, in glen or shaw, 

The mavis and the lintwhite sing. 

The merry ploughboy cheers his team ; 

Wi' joy the tentie seedman stauks ; 
But life to nie's a weary dream, 

A dream of ane that never wauks. 

The wanton coot the water skims ; 

Amang the reeds the ducklings cry ; 
The stately swan majestic swims ; 

And every thing is blest but I. 

The shepherd steeks his faulding slaps, 
And o'er the moorland whistles shrill ; 

Wi' wild, unequal, wandering step, 
I meet him on the dewy hill. 

And when the lark, 'tween light and dark, 
Blithe waukcns by the daisy's side. 

And mounts and sings on fluttering wings, 
A woe-worn ghaist, I hameward glide. 

Come, Winter, with thine angry howl, 
And raging bend the naked tree j 

Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul, 
When nature all is sad like me ! 



A HIGHLAND LAD MY LOVE WAS 
BORN. 

THE " RAUCLE CARLINE's" SONG IN THE 
" JOLLT BEGGARS." 

Tune—" O an ye war dead, guidman !" 

A Highland lad my love was born, 
The Lawland laws he held in scorn ; 



But he still was faithful to his claa, 
My gallant, braw .John Highlandraan ! 

Sing hey, mij braw John Highlandman ! 

Sing ho, my braw John Highlandman ! 

There's not a' lad in a the land, 

Was mutch for my braio John Highlandman! 

With his philabeg and tartan plaid, 
And gude claymore down by his side, 
The ladies' hearts he did trepan. 
My gallant braw John Highlandman. 
Sing hey, §-c. 

We ranged a' from Tweed to Spey, 
And lived like lords and ladies gay ; 
For a Lawland face he feared none, 
]\Iy gallant braw John Highlandman. 
Sing hey, §-c. 

They banished him beyond the sea ; 
B«t, ere the bud was on the tree, 
Adown my cheeks the pearls ran, 
Embracing my braw John Highlandman. 
Sing hey, ^-c. 

But, och ! they catclied him at the last. 
And bound him in a dungeon fost ; 
j\Iy curse upon them every one. 
They've hanged my braw John Highlandman • 
Sing hey, 8^c. 

And now, a widow, I must mourn 
Departed joys that ne'er return. 
No comfort but a hearty can, 
When I think on John Highlandman. 
Sing hey, §-c. 



AMANG THE TREES WHERE HUM- 
MING BEES. 

Tune—" The King of France, he rade a Race." 

Amang the trees where humming bees 

At buds and flowers were hinging, O ; 
Auld Caledon drew out her drone. 

And to her pipe was singing, O ; 
'Twas Pibroch, sang, strathspey, or reels, 

She dirl'd them aff, fu' clearly, O ; 
When there cam a yell o' foreign squeels, 

That dang her tapsalteerie, O — 

Their capon craws and queer ha ha's. 

They made our lugs grow eerie, O ; 
The hungry bike did scrape and pike 

'Till we were wae and weary, O — 
But a royal ghaist wha ance was cas'd 

A prisoner aughteen year awa, 
He fir'd a fiddler in the North 

That dang them tapsalteerie, O. 



190 



BURNS' WORKS. 



A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT. 
Tune—" For a' that, and a' that. 

Is there, for honest poverty, 

That hangs his head, and a' that ? 
The coward-slave, we pass him by ; 

We daur be puir for a' that. 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Our toils obscure, and a' that, 
The rank is but the guinea-stamp — ■ 

The man's the gowd for a' that. 

"What though on hamely fare we dine, 

Wear hoddin-grey, and a' that ? 
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine ; 

A man's a man for a' that ; 
For a' that, and a' that. 

Their tinsel show, and a' that, 
The honest man, though e'er sae puir, 

Is king o' men for a' that. 

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,^ 

Wha struts, and stares, and a' that ; 
Though hundreds worship at his word, 

He's but a cuif for a' that. 
For a' that, and a' that, 

His ribbon, star, and a' that. 
The man of independent mind, 

He looks and laughs at a' that. 

A king can make a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, and a' that ; 
But an honest man's aboon his micht, 

Gude faith, he mauuna fa' that ! 
For a' that, and a' that. 

Their dignities, and a' that. 
The pith o* sense, the pride o' worth, 

Are higher ranks for a' that. 

Then let us pray, that come it may. 

As come it will, for a' that. 
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, 

May bear the gree, and a' that. 
For a' that, and a' that. 

It's comin' yet for a* that, 
That man to man, the warld o'er, 

Shall brothers be for a' that. 



ANNA. 



Tune—" Banks of Banna." 

Yestreen I had a pint o' wine, 

A place where body saw na ; 
Yestreen lay on this breast o' mine 

The raven locks of Anna. 
The hungry Jew in wilderness. 

Rejoicing ower his manna, 
Was naething to my hinny bliss. 

Upon the lips of Anna. 

Ye monarchs tak the east and west, 
Frae Indus to Savannah ! 



Gie me within my straining grasp 
The melting form of Anna. 

There I'll despise imperial charms. 
An empress or sultana. 

While dying raptures, in her arms, 
I give and take with Anna. 

Awa, thou flaunting god of day ! 

Awa, thou pale Diana ! 
Ilk star gae hide thy twinkling ray, 

When I'm to meet my Anna. 
Come, in thy raven plumage, night, 

Sun, moon, and stars, withdrawn a' 
And bring au angel pen to write 

]\Iy transports with my Anna. * 



ANNIE. 
Tune—" Allan Water." 

I WALKED out with the Museum in my hand, 
and turning up Allan Water, the words appeared 
to me rather unworthy of so fine an air, so I sat 
and raved under the shade of an old thorn till I 
wrote one to suit the measure. 

By Allan stream I chanced to rove. 

While Phoebus sank beyond Benledi, 
The winds were whisp'ring through the grove, 

The yellow corn was waving ready : 
I listen'd to a lover's sang. 

And thought on youthful pleasures many ; 
And aye the wild-wood echoes rang — 

O, dearly do I love thee, Annie ! 

O, happy be the woodbine bower ; 

Nae nightly bogle mak it eerie j 
Nor ever sorrow stain the hour. 

The place and time I meet my dearie ! 
Her head upon my throbbing breast, 

She, sinking, said, I'm thine for ever ! 
While many a kiss the seal impress'd. 

The sacred vow, we ne'er should sevei*. 

The haunt o' Spring's the primrose brae ; 

The Simmer joys the flocks to follow ; 
How cheerie, through her short'ning day. 

Is Autumn in her weeds of yellow ! 
But can they melt the glowing heart. 

Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure. 
Or through each nerve the rapture dart, 

Like meeting her, our bosom's treasure ? 



* This song, like " Highland Mary," affords a strong 
proof of the power which poetry possesses of raising 
and subhming objects. Highland Mary was the dairy- 
maid of Coilsfield ; Anna is said to have been sonne- 
thing meaner. The poet sure was in a fine phrenzy- 
rolUng wlien he said, " I think this is the best love- 
song 1 ever wrote." 



SONGS 



191 



A RED RED ROSE. 
Tu7ie — " Low dowii iii the Brume.' 

O, MY luve's like a red red rose, 
That's newly sprung in June j 

O, my luve's like the melodie, 
That's sweetly play'd in tune. 

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, 

Sae deep in luve am I ; 
And I will love thee still, my dear. 

Till a' the seas gang dry. 

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear. 
And the rocks melt wi' the sun ; 

I will love thee still, my dear. 
While the sands o' life shall run. 

And fare thee vveel, my only luve. 
And fare thee weel a while ! 

And I will come again, my luve. 
Though it were ten thousand mile. 



A ROSE-BUD BY MY EARLY WALK. 

This song I composed on Miss Jenny Cruik- 
shank, only child to my worthy friend Mr. 
William Cruikshank of the High- School, Edin- 
burgh. The air is by David Sillar, quondam 
merchant, now schoolmaster, in Irvine : the 
Davie to whom I address my poetical epistle. 

A ROSE-BUD by my early walk, 
Adown a corn-inclosed bawk, 
Sae gently bent its thorny stalk. 
All on a dewy morning. 

Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled, 
In a' its crimson glory spread, 
And drooping rich the dewy head, 
It scents the early morning. 

Within the bush, her covert nest 
A little linnet fondly prest, 
The dew sat chilly on her breast 
Sae early in the morning. 

She soon shall see her tender brood. 
The pride, the pleasure o' the wood, 
Amang the fresh green leaves bedewed. 
Awake the early morning. 

So thou, dear bird, young Jeany fair, 
On trembling string or vocal air. 
Shall sweetly pay the tender care 
That tents thy early morning. 

So thou, sweet rose-bud, young and gay, 
Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day. 
And bless the parent's evening ray 
That watched thy early morning. 



A SOUTHLAND JENNY. 

This is a popular Ayrshire song, though the 
notes were never taken down before. — It, as 
well as many of the ballad tunes in this collec- 
tion, was written from Mrs. Burns's voice. 

A Southland Jenny that was right bouny, 
Had for a suitor a Norland Johnnie, 
But he was sicken a bashfu' wooer, 
That he could scarcely speak unto her. 

But blinks o' her beauty, and hopes o' her siller, 
Forced him at last to tell his mind till her ; 
My dear, quo' he, we'll nae langer tarry. 
Gin ye can lo'e me, let's o'er the moor and marry. 

Come awa then, my Norland laddie, 
Tho' we gang neat, some are mair gaudy ; 
Albeit I hae neither land nor money. 
Come, and I'll ware my beauty on thee. 

Ye lasses o' the South, ye're a' for dressin ; 
Lasses o' the North, mind milkin and threshin ; 
My minnie wad be angry, and sae wad my 

daddie. 
Should 1 marry ane as dink as a lady. 

I maun hac a wife that will rise i' the mornin, 
Cruddle a' the milk, and keep the house a 

scauldin ; 
Tulzie wi' her neebors, and learn at my minnie, 
A Norland Jocky maun hae a Norland Jenny. 

My father's only dochter, wi' farms and siller 

ready. 
Wad be ill bestowed upon sic a clownish body ; 
A' that I said was to try what was in thee, 
Gae hame, ye Norland Jockie, and court your 

Norland Jenny ! 



AULD LANG SYNE. 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot. 

And never brought to mind ? 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
And auld lang syne ! 

For auld Lang syne, my jo. 

For auld lany syne, 
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 
For auld lany syne ! 

And surely ye'll be your pint stoup ! 

And surely I'U be mine ! 
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 

For auld lang syne. 
For auld, S^~c. 

We twa hae run about the braes, 
And pou't the govvans fine ; 

But we've wander'd uiony a weary foot 
Sin auld lang syne. 
For auld, §c. 



192 



BURNS' WORKS. 



We twa hae paldl't i' the burn, 

Frae morning sun 'till dine ; 
But seas between us braid hae roar'd, 

Sin auld lang syne. 
For auld, §-c. 

And there's a han', my trusty fiere, 

And gies a ban' o' thine ! 
And we'll tak a right gude willy-waught 

For auld lang syne ! 
For auld, ^c. 



AULD ROB MORRIS. 

There's auld Rob Morris, that wins in yon 

glen, 
He's the king o' gude fellows, and wale of auld 

men ; 
He has gowd in his coffers ; he has ousen and 

kine, 
And ae bonnie lassie, his darling and mine. 

She's fresh in the morning, the fairest in May ; 
She's sweet as the evening among the new hay ; 
As blythe, and as artless, as the lamb on the 

lea ; 
And dear to my heart as the light to my ee. 

But oh ! she's an heiress : auld Robin's a laird, 
And my daddie has nought but a cothouse and 

yard. 
A wooer like me mauna hope to come speed. 
The wounds I must hide that will soon be my 

dead. 

The day comes to me, but delight brings me 

nane ; 
The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane ; 
I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist, 
And I sigh as my heart it wad burst in my 

breast ! 

Oh had she but been of a lower degree, 

I then might hae hop'd she wad smil'd upon 

me ; 
O how past deserving had then been my bless 
As now my distraction, no words can express. 



BESSY AND HER SPINNING WHEEL. 

Tune—" The bottom of the Punch Bowl." 

O LEEZE me on my spinning-wheel ! 
O leeze me on my rock and reel ! 
Frae tap to tae that deeds me bien, 
And haps me feil * and warm at e'en ! 
I'll set me doun, and sing, and spin. 
While laigh descends the simmer sun ; 

* Covers me with a stuff agreeable io ihe skin. 



Blest wi' content, and milk, and meal— 
O leeze me on my spinning-wheel ! 

On ilka hand the burnies trot, 
And meet below my theekit cot ; 
The scented birk and hawthorn white 
Across the pool their arms unite, 
Alike to screen the birdie's nest, 
And little fishes' caller rest ; 
The sun blinks kindly in the biel. 
Where blythe I turn my spinning-wheel. 

On lofty aiks the cushats wall. 
And echo cons the doolfu' tale ; 
The lintwhites in the hazel braes, 
Delighted, rival ither's lays : 
The craik amang the clover hay, 
The paitrick whirring ower the lea, 
The swallow jinkin' round my shiel ; 
Amuse me at my spinning-wheel. 

Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy, 
Aboon distress, below envy, 
O wha wad leave this humble state, 
For a' the pride of a' the great ? 
Amid their flaring idle toys, 
Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys, 
Can they the peace and pleasure feel 
Of Bessy at her spinning-wheel ? 



BEWARE O' BONNIE ANN. 

I COMPOSED this song out of compliment to 
Miss Ann Masterton, the daughter of my friend, 
Allan Masterton, the author of the air of Strath- 
allans Lament, and two or three others in this 
work. 

Ye gallants bright I red ye right. 

Beware o' bonnie Ann ; 
Her comely face sae fu' o' grace. 

Your heart she will trepan. 
Her een sae bright, like stars by night. 

Her skin is like the swan ; 
Sae jimply lac'd her genty waist. 

That sweetly ye might span. 

Youth, grace, and love, attendant move. 

And pleasure' leads the van : 
In a' their charms, and conquering arms. 

They wait on bonnie Ann. 
The captive bands may chain the hands, 

But love enslaves the man ; 
Ye gallants braw, I red you a'. 

Beware o' bonnie Ann. 



SONGS. 



193 



BEHOLD THE HOUR, THE BOAT 
ARRIVE. 

Tune—'" Oran Gaoil." 

Behold tlie hour, the boat arrive ; 

Thou goest, thou darUng of my heart ! 
Sever'd from thee, can I survive ? 

But fate has will'd, and we must part. 
I'll often greet this surging swell, 

Yon distant isle will often hail : 
" E'en here I took my last farewell, 

There latest mark'd her vanish'd sail." 

Along the solitary shore, 

While flitting sea-fowl rouud me cry. 
Across the rolling, dashing roar, 

I'll westward turn my wistful eye : 
Happy, thou Indian grove, I'll say. 

Where now my Nancy's path may be ! 
While through thy sweets she loves to stray. 

Oh, tell me, does she muse on m.e ? 



BEYOND THEE, DEARIE. 

It is remarkable of this air, that it is the con - 
fine of that country where the greatest jiart of 
our Lowland music, (so far as from the title, 
words, &c. we can localize it), has been com- 
posed. From Craigie-buru, near Moffat, until 
one reaches the West Highlands, we have scarce- 
ly one slow air of any antiquity. 

The song was composed on a passion which 
a Mr. Gillespie, a particular friend of mine, had 
for a Miss Lorimcr, afterwards a Mrs. Whelp- 
dale. — The young lady was born at Craigie- 
burn wood. — The chorus is part of an old fool- 
ish ballad. — 

Seyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie. 

And O to he lying beyond thee, 
O sweetly, soundly, tceel may he sleep. 

That's laid in the bed beyond thee. 



CRAIGIE-BURN WOOD. 

Sweet closes the evening on Craigie-burn wood, 

And blythely awakens the morrow ; 
But the pride of the spring in the Craigie-buru 
wood, 
Can yield me to nothing but sorrow. 
JBeyond thee, §-c. 

I see the spreading leaves and flowers, 

I hear the wild birds singing ; 
But pleasure they hae nane for me. 

While care my heart is wringing. 
Beyond thee, 8fc. 

J camia tell, I maun na tell, 
I dare ua for your auger ; 



But secret love will break my heart» 
If I conceal it langer. 

Beyond, thee, S^c. 

I see thee gracefu*, straight and tall, 
I see thee sweet and bonnie, 

But oh, what will my torments be, 
If thou refuse thy Johuie ! 
Beyond thee, §'c. 

To see thee in anither's arms, 
In love to lie and languish, 

'Twad be my dead, that will be seen. 

My heart wad burst wi* anguish. 

Beyond thee, §'c. 

But Jeanie, say thou wilt be mine, 
Say, thou lo'es nane before me ; 

And a' my days o' life to come, 
I'll gratefully adore thee. 
Beyond thee, Sfc. 



BLYTHE HAE I BEEN ON YON HILL, 
Tune—" Liggeram cosh." 

Blythe hae I been on yon hill, 

As the lambs before me ; 
Cureless ilka thought and free, 

As the breeze flew o'er me : 
Now nae langer sport and play. 

Mirth or sang can please me : 
Lesley is sae fair and coy. 

Care and anguish seize me. 



Heavy, heavy is the task, 

Hopeless love declaring : 
Trembling, I dow uocht but glowr, 

Sighing, dumb, despairing! 
If she wirma ease the thraws. 

In my bosom swelling ; 
ll^uderneath the grass-green sod, 

Soon maun be my dwelling. 



BLYTHE WAS SHE. 

Blythe, blythe and merry was she, 
Blythe was she but and ben ; 

Blythe by the banks of Ern, 
And blythe in Glenturit glen. 

By Oughtertyre grows the aik, 

On Yarrow banks, the biiken shaw : 

But Phemie was a bonnnier lass 
Than biaes o' Yarrow ever saw, 
Blythe, 8fc. 



Her looks were like a flow'r in May, 
Her smile was like a siuuuer morn 



45 



194 



BURNS' WORKS. 



She tripped by the banks of Ern, 
As light's a bird upon a thorn. 
Blythe, §-c. 

Her bonuy fooe it was as meek 

As ony lamb upon a lee ; 
The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet 

As was the blink o' Phemie's e'e. 
Blythe. §'c. 

The Highland hill's I've wander'd wide, 
And o'er the Lowlands I hae been ; 

But Phemie was the blythest lass 
That ever trod the dewy green. 
Blythe, ^c. 



BONNIE WEE THING. 

Tune—" Bonnie Wee Thing." 

Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing, 
Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine, 

I wad wear thee in my bosom, 
Lest my jewel I should tine. 

Wistfully I look and languish 
In that bonnie face o' thine ; 

And my heart it stounds wi' anguish, 
Lest my wee thing be na mine. 

Wit, and grace, and love, and beauty, 

In ae constellation shine ; 
To adore thee is my duty, 

Goddess o' this soul o' mine ! 

Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing. 
Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine, 

I wad wear thee in my bosom, 
Lest my jewel I should tine. 



BONNIE BELL. 

The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing. 

And surly Winter grimly flies ; 
Now crystal clear are the falling waters, 

And bonnie blue are the sunny skies ; 
Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the mor- 
ning. 

The ev'ning gilds the ocean's swell ; 
All creatures joy In the sun's returning, 

And I rejoice In my bonnie Bell. 

The flow'ry Spring leads sunny Summer, 

And yellow Autumn presses near, 
Then in his turn ponies gloomy Winter, 

'Till smiling Spring again appear. 
Thus seasons dancing, life advancing, 

Old Time and Nature their changes tell, 
But never ranging, still uucluiuging 

I adore mv bonnie Bell. 



BONNIE LESLEY. 

Tune—" The Collier's bonnie Lassie. 

O, SAW ye bonnie Lesley, 

As she gaed o'er the Border ? 
She's gane, like Alexander, 

To spread her conquests farther. 
To see her is to love her, 

And love but her for ever ; 
For nature made her what she is. 

And never made anlther ! 

Thou art a queen, fair Lesley, 

Thy subjects we before thee : 
Thou art divine, fair Lesley ; 

The hearts o' men adore thee. 
The Dell he couldna scaith thee. 

Or aught that wad belang thee ; 
He'd look into thy bonnie face. 

And say, I canna wrang thee ! 

The Powers aboon will tent thee, 

Misfortune shanna steer thee ; 
Thou'rt like themselves sae lovely, 

That ill they'll ne'er let near thee. 
Return again, fair Lesley, 

Return to Caledonie ! 
That we may brag we hae a lass 

There's nane again sae bonnie.* 



BONNIE JEAN. 

Tune — " Bonnie Jean." 

There was a lass, and she was fair. 
At kirk and market to be seen ; 

When a' the fairest maids were met. 
The fairest maid was bonnie Jean. 

And aye she wrought her mammie's wark. 
And aye she sang sae merrilie ; 

The blythest bird upon the bush 
Had ne'er a lighter heart than she. 

But hawks will rob the tender joys 
That bless the little lintwhite's nest ; 

And frost will blight the fairest flowers. 
And love will break the soundest rest. 

Young Robie was the brawest lad, 
The flower and pride of a' the glen j 

And he had owsen, sheep, and kye, 
And wanton naigies nine or ten. 

He gaed wi' Jcanie to the tryste. 
He danced wi' Jeanie on the down ; 

And lang ere witless Jeanie wist, 

Her heart was tint, her peace was stown. 



* Written in honour of Miss Lesley Baillie of Ayr- 
shire, (now Mrs. Cummin!» of Logic), when on her 
way to Euglund, through Dumfries. 



SONGS. 



lf)5 



As in tlie l)osom o' the stream 

The moonbeam dwells at dewy c'eiij 

So trembling, pure, was tender love, 
Within the breast o' bounie Jean. 

And now she works her mamniie's wark, 
And aye she sighs wi' grief and pain ; 

Yet wistna what her ail might be, 
Or what wad make her weel again. 

But didna Jeanie's heart loup light, 
And didna joy blink in her ee, 

As Robie taidd a tale o' love, 
Ac e'ening, on the lily lea ? 

The sun was sinking in the west, 
The birds sang sweet in ilka grove ; 

His cheek to hers he fondly prest, 
And whisper'd thus his tale of love : 

O Jeanie fair, I lo'e thee dear ; 

O canst thou think to fancy me ? 
Or wilt thou leave thy mamraie's cot, 

And learn to tent the farms wi' me ? 

At barn nor byre thou shalt na drudge, 
Or naethiug else to trouble thee ; 

But stray amang the heather-bells, 
And tent the waving corn wi' me. 

Now what could artless Jeanie do ? 

She had nae will to say him na : 
At length she blush'd a sweet consent, 

And love was aye between them twa. 



HEY TUTTIE TAITTIE. 

I have met the tradition universally over 
Scotland, and particularly about Stirling, in 
the neighbourhood of the scene, that this air 
was Robert Bruce's march at the Battle of Ban- 
nockhurn. 



H- 



BRUCE'S ADDRESS 

TO HIS TROOPS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF 
BANNOCKBURN. 

Tune—" Hey tuttie taittie." 



Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled ! 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led ! 
Welcome to your gory bed. 
Or to victorie ! 

Now's the day, and now's the hour : 
See the front of battle lour : 
See approach proud Edward's power- 
Chains and slaverie ! 

Wlia will be a traitor knave ? 
"Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
Wha sae base as be a slave ? ^ 
Let him turn and flee ! 



Wlia, for Scotland's king and law. 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Freeman stand, or freeman fa', 
Let him follow rae ! 

By oppression's woes and pains, 
By your sons in servile chains. 
We will drain our dearest veins. 
But they shall be free. 

Lay the proud usurpers low, 
Tyrants fall in every foe. 
Liberty's in every blow, 
Let us do, or die ! 



CA' THE YOWES TO THE KNOWES. 

Ca' the yowes to the knowos, 
Ca' them where the heather grows, 
Ca' them where the burnie rowes, 
]My bonnic dearie. 

Hark, the mavis' evening sang, 
Sounding Chiden's woods amang ; 
Then a-faulding let us gang, 
]My bonnie dearie. 

We'll gang doun by Cluden side. 
Through the hazels spreading wide 
O'er the waves that sweetly glide, 
jNIy bonnie dearie. 

Yonder Cluden's silent towers, 
Where, at moonshine midnight hours, 
O'er the dewy l)udding flowers 

The fairies dance sae cheerie. 

Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear ; 
Thou'rt to love and heaven sae dear, 
Nocht of ill may come thee near. 
My bonnie dearie. 

Fair and lovely as thou art, 
Thou hast stoun my very heart ; 
I can die — but canna part. 
My bonnie dearie. 



CANST THOU LEAVE ME THUS, MY 
KATY ? 

Tune — " Roy's wife." 

Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ? 
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ? 
Well thou knowest my aching heart, 
And canst thou leave me thus for pity ? 

Is this thy plighted fond regard, 

Thus cruelly to part, ray Katy ? 
Is this thy faithful swain's reward — 

An aching, broken heart, my Katy ? 



196 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Farewell ! and ne'er shcIi •sorrows tear 
That fickle heart of thine, my Katy ! 

Thou may'st find those will love thee dear — 
But not a love like mine, my Katy. 



REPLY TO THE ABOVE. 

BY A YOUNG ENGLISH GENTLEWOMAN. FOUND 
AMONGS: BURNS'S MANUSCRIPTS AFTER HIS 
BECEASI . 

I 

Stay, my Willie — yet helieve me, 
Stay, my Willie — yet believe me ; 
'Tweel, thou know'st na every pang 
Wad wring my bosom shouldst thou leave me. 

Tell me that thou yet art Inie, 

And a' my wrongs shall be forgiven ; 

And when this heart proves false to thee. 
Yon sun shall cease its course in heaven. 

But to think I was betray'd. 

That falsehood e'er our loves should sunder ! 
To take the floweret to my breast, 

And find the guilefu' serpent under ! 

Could I hope thou'dst ne'er deceive me. 
Celestial pleasures, might I choose 'em, 

I'd slight, nor seek in other spheres 

That heaven I'd find witbm thv bosom. 



He wanders as free as the wind on his mountains, 
Save love's willing fetters — .the chains of hii 
Jean.* 



CHLOE. 



ALTERED FROM AN OLD ENGLISH SONtt 

It was the charming month of May, 
When all the flowers were fresh and gay, 
One morning by the break of day, 
The youtliful, charming Chloe ; 

From peaceful slumber she ai'ose, 
Girt on her mantle and her hose, 
And o'er the flowery mead she goes, 
The youthful, charming Chloe. 
Lovely was she hij the dawn, 

Youthfid Chloe, charming Chloe, 
Tripping o'er the pearly lawn, 
The yoidhful, charming Chloe. 

The feather'd people you might see 
Perch'd all around on every tree, 



CALEDONIA. 

Their groves O sweet myrtles let foreign lands 
/reckon, 
Where bright-beaming sinnmers exalt the per- 
fume ; 
Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan, 
With the burn stealing under the lang yellow 
broom. 

Far dearer to me yon humble broom bowers, 
Where the blue bell and gowan lurk lowly 
unseen ; 

For there, lightly tripping amang the wild flowers, 
A listening tlie linnet, aft wanders my Jean. 

Though rich is the breeze, in their gay sunny 
vallies. 
And cauld Caledonia's blast on the wave ; 
Their sweet-scented woodlands, that skirt the 
proud palace, 
What are thev ? — the haunt o' the tyrant and 
slave! 

The slave's spicy forests and gold-bubbling 
fountains. 
The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain ; 



* Bums wrote this song in compliment to Mrs. Bums 
during their honeymoon. The air, with many others 
of equal beauty, was the composition of a Mr. Mar- 
shall, who, in Bums's time, was butler to the Duke 
of Gordon. 

This beautiful song — beautiful for both its amatory 
and its patriotic sentiment — seems to have been com- 
posed by Bums during the period when he was court- 
ing the lady who afterwards became his wife. The 
present generation is much interested in this lady, and 
deser\'edly ; as, in addition to her poetical history, 
which is an extremely interesting one, she is a person- 
age of the greatest private worth, and in every respect 
deserving to be esteemed as the widow of Scotland's 
best and most endeared bard. The following anecdote 
will perhaps be held as testifying, in no inconsiderable 
degree, to a quality which she may not hitherto have 
been supposed to possess — her wit. 

It is generally known, that Mrs. Burns has, ever since 
her husband's death, occupied exactly the same house 
in Dumfries, which she inhabited before that event, 
and that it is customary for strangers, who happen to 
pass through or visit the town, to pay their respects to 
her, with or without letters of introduction, precisely 
as they do to the churchyard, the bridge, the harbour, 
or any other public object of curiosity about the place. 
A gay young English gentleman one day visited Mrs. 
Burns, and after he liad seen all that she had to show 
— the bedroom in which the poet died, his original por- 
trait by Nasrnyth, his family-bible, with the names and 
birth -days of himself, his wife, and children, written on 
a blank-leaf by his own hand, and some other little 
triHes of the same nature — he proceeded to intreat that 
she would have the kindness to present him with some 
relic of the poet, which he might carry away with him, 
as a wonder, to show in his own country. " Indeed, 
Sir," said Mrs. Burns, " I have given away so many re- 
lics of Mr. Burns, that, to tell ye the truth, 1 have not 
one left" — " Oh, you must surely have something," 
said the persevering Saxon ; "anything will do — any 
litUe scrap of his handwriting — the least thing you 
pleaje. All I want is Just a relic of the poet ; and any 
thing, you know, will do for a relic." Some further 
altercatnn took place, the lady reasserting that she had 
no reUc to give, and he as repeatedly renewing his re- 
quest. At length, fairly tired out with the man's im- 
portimities, Mrs. Burns said to him, with a smile, 
" 'Deed, Sir, unless ye tak mysell, then, I dinna see 
how you are to get what you want ; for, really, I'm the 
only relic o' him that I ken o'." The petitioner at once 
witlidrew his request. 



SONGS. 



197 



III notes of s^vcetest melody 

They hail the chanming Chloe ; 

'Till, painting gay the eastern skies, 
The ojorious snn began to rise, 
Outrivall'd by the radiant eyes 
Of youthful, charming Chloe. 
Lovely was she, 8fc, 



CHLORIS. 

Tune—" My Lodging is on the Cold Ground. 

JSIy Chloris, mark how green the groves, 
The primrose banks how fair ; 

The balmy gales awake the flowers, 
And wave thy flaxen hair. 

The lav'rock shuns the palace gay, 

And o'er the cottage sings ; 
For nature smiles as sweet, I ween, 

To shepherds as to kings. 

Let minstrels sweep the skilfu' string 

In lordly lechtit ha' ; 
The shepherd stops his simple reed, 

Blythe, in the birken shaw. 

The princely revel may survey 

Our rustic dance wi* scorn ; 
But are their hearts as light as ours, 

Beneath the milk-white thorn ? 

The shepherd, in the flow'ry glen, 
In shepherd's phrase will woo; 

The courtier tells a fairer tale, 
But is his heart as true ? 

Tluse vv ild-wood flowers I've pu'd, to deck 

That spotless breast of thine ; 
The courtier's gems may witness love, 

But 'tis na love like mine. 



CLARINDA.* 

Clarinda, mistress of my soul, 

The measur'd time is run ! 
The wretch beneath the dreary pole, 

So marks his latest sun. 

To what dark cave of frozen night 

Shall poor Sylvander hie ; 
Depriv'd of thee, his life and light, 

The sun of all his joy. 

We part, — but by these precious drops, 

That fill thy lovjly eyes ! 
No other light shall guide my steps, 

Till thy bright beams arise. 



» The widow alluded to in the Life. 



She, the fair sun of all her sex, 
Has blest my glorious day : 

And shall a glimmering planet fix 
My worship to its ray ? 



CONTENTIT WI' LITTLE. 

Tutu-'*' Lumps o' Puddin." 

CoNTENTiT wi' little, and cantie wi' mair, 
Whene'er I forgather wi' sorrow an( care, 
I gie them a skelp, as they're creepin' alang, 
Wi' a cogue o' gude swats and an auld Scottish 



I whiles claw the elbow o' troublesome thocht ; 
But man is a sodger, and life is a faucht : 
My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch. 
And my freedom's my lairdship nae monarch 
daur touch. 

A towmond o' trouble, should that be my fa*, 
A nicht o' gude fellowship sowthers it a' : 
When at the blythe end o' our journey at last, 
Wha the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past ? 

Blind chance, let her snapper and stoite on her 

way ; 
Be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jaud gae ; 
Come ease or come travail, come pleasure or pain. 
My warst word is — Welcome, and welcome, a- 

gain ! 



COME, LET ME TAKE THEE TO I\IY 
BREAST. 

Tune—" Cauld Kail in .\berdeen." 

Co:me, let nie take thee to uiy breast, 

And pledge we ne'er shall sunder ; 
And I shall spurn, as vik'st dust, 

The warld's wealth and grandeur : 
And do I hoar my Jeanie own. 

That equal transports move her ? 
I ask for dearest life alone 

That 1 may live to love her. 

Thus in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, 

I clasp my countless treasure ; 
I'll seek nae mair o' heaven to share. 

Than sic a moment's pleasure : 
And, by thy een sae bonnie bhic, 

I swear I'm thine for ever ! 
And on thy lips I seal my vow, 

And break it shall I never. 



198 



BURNS' WORKS. 



COUNTRY LASSIE. 

In simmer when the hay was mawn, 

And corn wav'tl green in ilka field, 
"While claver blooms white o'er the lea, 

And roses blaw in ilka bield ; 
Blytlie Bessie in the milking shiel, 

Says, I'll be wed come o't what will ; 
Out spake a dame in wrinkled eild, 

O' gude advisement comes nae ill. 

Its ye hae wooers mony a ane, 

^ And, lassie, ye' re but young, ye ken ; 

Then wait a wee, and cannie wale, 

A routhie butt, a routhie ben : 
There's Johnie o' the Buskie-glen, 

Fu' is his barn, fu' is his b)Te ; 
Tak this frae me, my bonnie hen, 

It's plenty beets the luver's fire. 

For Johnie o' the Buskie-glen, 

I dinna care a single flie ; 
He lo'es sae weel his craps and kye, 

He has nae luve to spare for me : 
But blythe's the blink o' Robie's e'e. 

And weel I wat he lo'es me dear : 
Ae blink o' him I wad na gie 

For Buskie-glen and a' his gear. 

O thoughtless lassie, life's a faught, 

The canniest gate, the strife is sair ; 
But aye fu' han't is fechtin' best, 

A hungry care's an unco care : 
But some will spend, and some will spare, 

And wilfu' folk maun hae their will; 
Syne as ye brew, my maideu fair, 

Keep mind that ye maun drink the ylll. 

O gear will buy me rigs o' land, 

And gear will buy me sheep and kye ; 
But the tender heart o' lecsome hive, 

The gowd and siller canna buy : 
We may be poor, Robie and I, 

Light is the burden luve lays on ; 
Content and love brings peace and joy, • 

What mair hae queens upon a throne ? 



DAINTIE DAVIE. 

This song, tradition says, and the composi- 
tion itself confirms it, was composed on the Rev. 
David Williamson's getting the daughter of 
Lady Cherrytrees with child, while a party of 
dragoons were searching her house to apprehend 
him for being an adherent to the solemn league 
and covenant. — The pious woman had put a 
lady's night-cap on him, and hud laid him a-bed 
with her own daughter, and passed him to the 
soldiery as a lady, her daughter's bed-fellow. 
— A mutilated stanza or two are to be found in 
Herd's collection, but the original song consists 
of five or six stanzas, and were their delicacy 



equal to their loit and humour^ they would 
merit a place in any collection. — The first stanza 



Being pursued by a dragoon. 
Within my bed he was laid down ; 
And well I wat he was worth his room. 
For he was my daintie Davie, 



DAINTY DAVIE. 

Tvne-—" Dainty Davie." 

Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, 
To deck her gay gi'een birken bowers, 
And now come in my happy hours, 
To wander wi' my Davie. 

Meet me on the tvarlock knowe. 

Dainty Davie, dainty Davie ; 
There Til spend the day wV you. 
My ain dear dainty Davie. ^ 

The crystal waters round us fa'. 
The merry birds are lovers a'. 
The scented breezes round us blaw, 
A-wandering wi' my Davie. 
Meet me on, Sfc. 

Wlien purple morning starts the hare. 
To steal upon her early fare. 
Then through the dews I will repair, 
To meet my faithfu' Davie. 
Meet me on, ^c. 

Wlien day, expiring in the west. 
The curtain draws o' Nature's rest, 
I'll flee to his arms I lo'e best, 
And that's my dainty Davie. 
Meet me on, ^c. 



DELUDED SWAIN, THE PLEASURE. 

Tune—" The Collier's Bonnie Lassie." 

Deluded swain, the pleasure 

The fickle fair can give thee 
Is but a fairy treasure — 

Thy hopes will soon deceive thee. 

The billows on the ocean, 

The breezes idly roaming. 
The clouds' uncertain motion. 

They are but types of woman. 

O ! art thou not ashamed 

To doat upon a feature ? 
If man thou wouldst be named, 

Despise the silly creature. 

Go, find an honest fellow ; 

Good claret set before thee : 
Hold on till thou art mellow ; 

And then to bed in glory. 



SONGS. 



[99 



DOES HAUGHTY GAUL. 

Tune—" Push about the Jorum." 

April, 1795. 

Does haughty Gaul invasion threat ? 

Then let the loons beware, Sir, 
There's wooden walls upon our seas, 

And volunteers on shore, Sir. 
The Nith shall run to Corsincon,* 

And CrifFel sink in Solway,f 
Ere we permit a foreign foe 

On British ground to rally ! 
Fall de rail, §*c. 

O let us not, like snarling tykes, 

In wrangling be divided ; 
'Till slap come in an unco loon 

And wi' a rung decide it. 
Be Britain still to Britain true, 

Amang oursels united ; 
For never but by British hands 

Maun British wrangs be righted. 
Fall de rail, Sfc. 

The kettle o' the kirk and state. 

Perhaps a clout may fail in't ; 
But deil a foreign tinkler loon 

Shall ever ca' a nail in't. 
Our fathers' bluid the kettle bought, 

And wha wad dare to spoil it ; 
By heaven the sacrilegious dog 

Shall fuel be to boil it. 

Fall de rail, S^c. 

The wretch that wad a tyrant own, 

And the wretch his true-born brother, 
Wiio would set the mob aboon the throne, 

May they be damned together ! 
Who will not sing " God save the king," 

Shall hang as high's the steeple ; 
But, while we sing " God save the king,' 

We'll ne'er forget the people. 
Fall de rail, 8fc. 



DOWN THE BURN DAVIE. 

VERSE ADDED BY BURNS TO THE OLD SONG. 

As down the burn they took their way, 

And through the flowery dale, 
His cheek to hers he aft did lay, 

And love was aye the tale. 
With — INIary when shall we return, 

Such pleasure to renew ? 
Quoth Mary, love, I like the burn, 

And aye wdl follow you. 



A high hill at the source of the Nith. 
t A well-known mountain at the mouth of the same 
river. 



DUNCAN GRAY. 

Dii. Blackcock informed me that he had 
often heard the tradition that this air was com- 
posed by a carman in Gl^gow. 

Duncan Gray cam here to woo. 

Ha, Iia, the wooing o't. 
On blythe yule night when we were fou. 

Ha, ha, the ivooing o't. 
Maggie coost her head fu' high, 
Look'd asklent and unco skeigh ; 
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh ; 

Ha, ha, the ivooing dt. 

Duncan fleech'd and Duncan pray'd : 

Ha, ha, 8fc. 
Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig, * 

Ha, ha, Sfc. 
Duncan sigh'd baith out and in, 
Grat his e'en baith bleert and bliu, 
Spak o' lowpin o'er a linn ; 

Ha, ha, Sfc. 

Time and cliance are but a tide. 

Ha, ha, 8fc. 
Slighted love is sair to bide. 

Ha, ha, §v. 
Shall I, like a fool, quo' he. 
For a haughty hizzie die ; 
She may gae to — France for me ! 

Ha, ha, Sfc. 

How it comes let doctors tell, 

Ha, ha, ^-c. 
Meg grew sick — as he grew heal. 

Ha, ha, S^-c. 
Something in her bosom wrings, 
For relief a sigh she brings ; 
And O, her een, they spak sic things ! 

Ha, ha, Sfc. 

Duncan was a lad o' grace, 

Ha, ha, §-c. 
Maggie's was a piteous case. 

Ha, ha, ^c. 
Duncan could na be her death, 
Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath ; 
Now they're crouse and canty baith, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 



EVAN BANKS. 

Sr,ow spreads the gloom my soul desires, 
The sun ft-om India's shore retires ; 
To Evan banks, with temp'rate ray, 
Home of my youth, it leads the day. 
Oh ! banks to me for ever dear ! 
Oh ! stream whose murmurs still I hear ! 
All, all my hopes of bliss reside. 
Where Evan mingles with the Clvde. 



* A well-known rock in the Frith of Clyde. 



200 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And she, in simple beauty drest, 
Whose image lives withia my breast ; 
Who trembling heard my piercing sigh, 
And long pursu'd me with her eye ! 
Does she, with heart unchang'd as mine, 
. ){t in the vocal bowers recline ? 
Or where yon grot o'erhangs the tide, 
Muse while the Evan seeks the Clyde. 

Ye lofty banks that Evan bound ! 
Ye lavish woods that wave around, 
And o'er the stream your shadows throw, 
Which sweetly winds so far below ; 
What secret charm to mem'ry brings, 
All that on Evan's border springs ? 
Sweet banks ! ye bloom by Mary's side : 
Blest stream, she views thee haste to Clyde. 

Can all the wealth of India's coast 

Atone for years in absence lost ? 

Return, ye moments of delight, 

With richer treasures bless my sight ! 

Swift from this desert let me part, 

And fly to meet a kindred heart ! 

Nor more may aught my steps divide 

From that dear stream which flows to Clyde. 



FAIR ELIZA. 



A GAELIC AIR. 



TuuN again, thou fair Eliza, 

Ae kind blink before we part, 
Rew on thy despairing lover ! 

Canst thou break his faithfu' heart ! 
Turn again, thou fair Eliza ; 

If to love thy heart denies, 
For pity hide the cruel sentence 

Under friendship's kind disguise ! 

Thee, dear maid, hae I offended ? 

The offence is loving thee : 
Canst thou wreck his peace for ever, 

Wha for thine wad gladly die ! 
While the life beats in my bosom, 

Thou shalt mix in ilka throe : 
Turn again, thou lovely maiden, 

Ae sweet smile on me bestow. 

Not the bee upon the blossom, 

In the pride o' sinny noon ; 
Not the little sporting fairy, 

All beneath the simmer moon ; 
Not the poet in the moment 

Fancy lightens on his ee, 
Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture 

That thy presence gies to me. 



FAIREST MAID ON DEVON BANKS. 
Tune—" Rothiemurchie." 

Fairest maid on Devon banks. 
Crystal Devon, winding Devon, 

Wilt thou lay that frown aside, 
A.nd smile as thou wert wont to do. 

Full well thou knowest I love thee dear, 
Couldst thou to malice lend an ear ! 
O did not love exclaim, " Forbear ! 
Nor use a faithful lover so." 
Fairest maid, §*c. 

Then come, thou fairest of the fair, 
Those wonted smiles, O let me share ; 
And by that beauteous self I swear, 
No love but thine my heart shall know. 
Fairest maid, 8fc.* 



FATE GAVE THE WORD. 

Tune—" Finlayston House." 

Fate gave the word, the arrow sped. 

And pierced my darling's heart : 
And with him all the joys are fled 

Life can to me impart. 
My cruel hands the sapling drops, 

In dust dishonour'd laid : 
So fell the pride of all my hopes, 

My age's future shade. 

The mother linnet in the brake 

Bewails her ravished young ; 
So I for my lost darling's sake, 

Lament the live-day long. 
Death, oft I've fear'd thy fatal bloiv. 

Now fond I bare my breast, 
O do thou kindly lay me low 

With him I love at rest ! 



FOR THE SAKE OF SOMEBODY. 

My heart is sair, I dare nae tell, 
My heart is sair for somebody ; 
I could wake a winter night 
For the sake of somebody. 

Oh-hon ! for somebody ! 
Oh-hey ! for somebody ! 



* These verses, and the letter enclosing them, are 
written in a character that marks the very feeble state 
of their author. Mr. Syme is of opinion that he could 
not have been in any danger of a jail at Dumfries, 
where certainly he had many firm friends, nor undcr 
any necessity of imploring aid from Edinburgh. But 
about this time his mind began to be at times unset- 
tled, and the horrors of a jail perpetually haunted his 
imagination. He died on the 21st of this month. 



SONGS. 



201 



I couW range the world aiouiul, 
For the sake of sonicboily. 

Ye powers that smile ou virtuous love 

O sweetly smile on somebody ! 
Frae ilka danger keep him free, 
And send me safe iny somebody. 
Oh-hon ! for somebody ! 
Oh-hey ! for somebody ! 
T wad do — what wad I not, 
For the sake of somebody ! 



FORLORN, MY LOVE. 

Tune — " Let me in this ae night." 

Forlorn, my love, no comfort near, 
Far, far from thee I wander here ; 
Far, far from thee, the fate severe 
At which I most repine, love. 

O wert thou love, but near me, 
J3ut near, near, near me ; 
How Idndhj thou wouldst clieer me, 
A.nd mingle sighs with mine, lovi 

Around me scowls a wintry sky, 
That blasts each bud of hope and joy ; 
And shelter, shade, nor home have I, 
Save in these arms of thine, love. 
O wert, 8fc. 

Cold, alter'd friendship's cruel part, 

To poison fortune's ruthless dart — 

Let me not break thy faithful heart, 

And say that fate is mine, love. 

O wert, 8fc. 

But dreaiy tho' the moments fleet, 
O let me think we yet shall meet ! 
That only ray of solace sweet 
Can on thy Cliloris shine, love. 
O wert, ^c. 



FROM THEE, ELIZA. 
Tune—" Gilderoy." 

From thee, Eliza, I must go, 

And from my native shore ; 
The cruel fates between us throw 

A boundless ocean's roar : 
But boundless oceans, roaring wide 

Between my love and me. 
They never, never can divide 

My heart and soul from thee. 

Fai'ewell, farewell, Eliza dear. 

The maid that I adore ! 
A boding voice is in mine em; 

We part to meet uo more. 



jMit tlie last thiol) that leaves my heart, 
W'hilt; (ieath stands victor by, 

Th.it throb, Eliza, is thy part, 
And thine that latest sigh. • 



GALA WATER. 

Tune — " Gala Water. ' 

There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 
That wander through the bluming heather ; 

But Yarrow braes, nor Ettrick shaws, 
Can match the lads o' Gala Water. 

But there is ane, a secret ane, 
Abune them a' I loe him better ; 

And I'll be his, and he'll be mine, 
The bounie lad o' Gala Water. 

Although his (laddie was nae laird. 
And though I hae na mickle tocher j 

Yet rich in kindest, truest love. 

We'll tent our flocks on Gala Water. 

It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth, 
That coft contentment, peace, or pleasure ; 

The bands and bliss o' mutual love, 
O that's the cliiefest warld's treasure ! 



GLOOMY DECEMBER. 

Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December, 

Ance mair I hail thee, wi' sorrow and care; 
Sad was the parting thou makes me remember. 

Parting wi' Nancy, Oli ! ne'er to meet mair. 
Fond lovers parting is sweet painful pleasure, 

Hope beaming mild on the soft paiting hour ; 
But the dire feeling, O farewell for ever. 

Is anguish unmingl'd and agony pure. 

Wild as the winter now tearing the forest, 

'Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown. 
Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom. 

Since my last hope and last comfort is gone; 
Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December, 

Still shall I hail thee wi' sorrow and care j 
For sad was the parting thou makes me re- 
mcmbei-. 

Parting wi' Nancy, Oh, ne'er to meet mair. 



* Miss Miller of Mauehlinc, (probably the same 
lady whom the poet has celebrated in Jiis catalogue of 
the beauties of that village— 

" Miss Miller is fine" ) 

afterwards Mrs, Tcmpletoii, w£lj the heroine of tliis 
beautiful song. 



46 



202 



BURNS' WORKS. 



GREEN GROW THE RASHES: 

A FRAGMENT. 

Green grow the rashes, O ! 

Green grow the rashes, O ! 
The siveetest hours that e'er 1 spend, 

Are spent amang the lasses, O ! 

There's nought but care ou every ban', 
In every hour that passes, O ; 

What signifies the life o' man, 
An* 'twere na for the lasses, O. 
Green grow, ^c. 

The warly race may riches chase, 
An' riches still may fly them, O ; 

An' though at last they catch them fast, 
Their hearts can ne'er eujoy them, O. 
Green grotv, ^c. 

But gie me a canny hour at e'en. 
My arms about my dearie, O ; 

An* warly cares, an' warly men, 
May a gae tapsalteerie, O. 

Green grow, §x. 

For you so douse, ye sneer at this, 
Ye' re nought but senseless asses, O j 

The wisest man the warld e'er saw, 
He dearly loved the lasses, O. 
Green grow, §t. 

Auld nature swears, the lovely dears 
Her noblest work she classes, O ; 

Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, 
And then she made the lasses, O. 
Green grow, 8fc. 



GUDEWIFE, COUNT THE LAWIN. 

Tune—" Gudewife, count the Lawin." 

Gane Is the day, and mirk's the night ; 
But we'll ne'er stray for faut o' light ; 
For ale and brandy's stars and moon, 
And blude-red wine's the rising sun. 

Then, gudewife, count the lawin, 

The lawin, the lawin. 

Then, gudewife, count the laivin, 

A.nd bring a coggie mair. 

There's wealth and ease for gentlemen, 
And semple folk maun fecht and fen ; 
But here we're a' in ae accord, 
For ilka man that's drunk's a lord. 
Then, gudewife, §*c. 

JNFy coggie is a haly pool. 

That heals the wounds o' care and dool ; 



And pleasuie is u wanton trout — 

An' ye drink but deep, ye'U find him out. 

Then, gudewife, count the lawin, 

The lawin, the lawin, 

The7t, gudewife, count the lawitif 

And bring's a coggie mair. 



HANDSOME NELL. 

Tune — " I am a man unmarrJed. . 

O, once I lov'd a bonnie lass, 

Av, and I love her still. 
And whilst that virtue warms my breast, 

I'll love mv handsome Nell. 
Tal lal de ral, §-c. 

As bonnie lasses I hae seen, 

And mony full as braw, 
But for a modest gracefu' mien 

The like I never saw. 

Tal lal de ral, S^c, 

A bonnie lass, I will confess, 

Is pleasant to the ee. 
But without some better qualities 

She's no a lass for me. 

Tal lal de ral, Sfc. 

But Nelly's looks are blithe and sweet, 

And what is best of a' 
Her reputation was complete, 

And fair without a flaw. 

Tal lal de ral, 8fc. 

She dresses aye sae clean and neat, 

Both decent and genteel ; 
And then there's something in her gait 

Gars ony dress look weel. 

Tal lal de ral, ^c. 

A gaudy dress and gentle air 

IMay slightly touch the heart, 
But it's innocence and modesty 

That polishes the dart. 

Tal lal de ral, 8fc. 

'Tis this in Nelly pleases me, 

'Tis this enchants my soul; 
For absolutely in my breast 

She reigns without control. 
Tal lal de ral, §-c. 

It must be confessed that these lines give no 
indication of the future genius of Burns ; but 
he himself seems to have been fond of them^ 
probably from the recollections they excited. 



SONGS. 



203 



HAD I A CAVE. 

Had I a cave on some wild distant shore, 
Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar, 
There would I weep my woes, 
There seek my lost repose. 
Till grief my eyes should close, 
Ne'er to wake more. 

Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare 
AU thy fond plighted vows — fleeting as air ! 

To thy new lover hie, 

Laugh o'er thy perjury. 

Then in thy bosom try 
What peace is there. 

Compare this with the old crambo-clink, — to 
the same air — 

You'r welcome to Paxton, young Robin Adair, 
Your welcome, but asking, sweet Robin Adair. 

How does Johnnie Mackeral do ? 

Ave, and Luke Gardener too ? 

Come love me and never rue,' 
Robin Adair. 



HIGHLAND HARRY- 

My Harry was a gallant gay ; 

Fu' stately strode he on the plain ; 
But now he's banish'd far aw;iy, 
I'll never see him back again. 
Oh, for him hack again ! 

Oh, for him hack again ! 
I toad gie a Knochhaspies land 
For Highland, Harry hack again. 

When a' the lave gac to their bed, 

I wander dowie up the glen ; 
I sit me down, and greet my fill. 

And aye I wish him back again. 

Oh, for him hack again ! 8fc. 

Oh, were some villains hangit hie. 

And ilka body had their ain. 
Then I micht see the joyfu' sicht, 

My Highland Harry back again. 

Oh, for him hack again ! Sfc. 

Sad was the day, and sad the hour. 

He left me in his native plain, 
And rush'd his much-wrong'd prince to join ; 

But, oh ! he'll ne'er come back again I 
Oh, for him hack again ! ^c. 

Strong was my Harry's arm in war, 
Unmatch'd in a' Culloden's plain ; 

But vengeance marks him for her ain— > 
I'll never see him back again.* 

Oh, for him hack again ! ^c. 

* The first three verses of this song, excepting the 
chorus, are by Burns. The air to which it is sung, is 
the Highlander's Farewell to Ireland, with some alter- 
ations, sung slowly. 



X 



HIGHLAND MARY. 

Tune—" Katherinc Ogie." 



Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 

The Castle o' 3Iontgomery ! * 
Green be your woods, and fair your flow'rs. 

Your waters never drumlie ! 
There simmer first unfauld her robes. 

And there they langest tarry ! 
For there I took the last fareweel 

O' my sweet Highland Mary. 

How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk ! 

How rich the hawthorn's blossom ! 
As, underneath their fragrant shade, 

I clasp'd her to my bosom ! 
The golden hours, on angel wings, 

Flew o'er me and my dearie ; 
For dear to me, as light and life. 

Was my sweet Highland Mary. 

Wi' monie a vow and lock'd embrace, 

Our parting was fu' tender ; 
And, pledging aft to meet again, 

We tore ourselves asunder : 
But, oh ! fell death's untimely frost, 

That nipt my flower sae early ! 
Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay, 

That wraps my Highland Mary ! 

O pale, pale now, those rosy hps, 

I aft hae kiss'd sae fondly I 
And closed for aye the sparkling glance. 

That dwelt on me sae kindly ; 
And mould'ring now in silent dust, 

That heart that lo'ed me dearly ! 
But still within my bosom's core, 

Shall live my Highland Mary. 



HER FLOWING LOCKS 

A FRAGMENT. 

Her flowing locks, the raven's wing, 
Adown her neck and bosom hing; 

How sweet unto that breast to cling, 
And round that neck entwine her ! 

Her lips are roses wat wi' dew, 
O, what a feast, her bonnie mou ! 

Her cheeks a mair celestial hue, 
A crimson still diviner. 



* Coilsfield House, near Mauchline ; but poetically 
titled as above, on account of the name of the pro- 
prietor. 



204 



BURNS' WORKS. 



HERE'S, A BOTTLE AND AN HONEST 
FRIEND. 

Here's, a bottle aud an honest friend ! 

What wad ye wish for niair, man ? 
Wlia kens, before his hfe may end. 

What his share may be of care, man. 
Then catch the moments as they fly, 

And use them as ye ought, man : — • 
Believe me, happiness is sliy, 

And comes not ay when sought, man. 



HERE'S A HEALTH TO THEM 
THAT'S AW A. 

PATRIOTIC UNFINISHED. 

Hsre's a health to them that's awa, 

Here's a health to them that's awa ; 

And whoa winna wish gude luck to our cause, 

May never gude luck be their fa' ! 

It's gude to be merry and wise. 

It's gude to be honest and true, 

It's gude to support Caledonia's cause, 

And bide by the butfand the blue. 

Here's a health to them that's awa, 

Here's a health to them that's awa ; 

Here's a health to Charlie, the chief o" the clan, 

Altho' that his band be sma'. 

May liberty meet wi' success ! 

May prudence protect her frae evil ! 

May tyrants and tyranny tine in the mist, 

And wander their way to the devil ! 

Here's a health to them that's awa, 

Here's a health to them that's awa, 

Here's a health to Tammie, the Norland laddie, 

That lives at the lug of the law ! 

Here's freedom to him that wad read, 

Hei'e's freedom to him that wad write ! 

There's nane ever fear'd that the truth should 

be heard. 
But they wham the truth would indite. 

Here's a health to them that's awa. 
Here's a health to them that's awa. 
Here's Chieftain M'Leod, a Chieftain worth 

gowd, 
Tho' bred amang mountains o' snaw I 



Thou art sweet as the smile when kind lovers 

meet. 
And soft as their parting tear, Jessie ! 

Although thou maun never be mine — 
Although even hope is denied — 

'Tis sweeter for thee despairing 

Than aught in the world beside, Jessie ! 

I mourn through the gay gaudy day, 
As hopeless I muse on thy charms ; 

But welcome the dream o' sweet slumber. 
For then I am lock'd in thy arms, Jessie ! 

I guess by the dear angel smile, 

I guess by the love-rolling ee ; 
But why urge the tender confession, 

'Gainst fortune's fell cruel decree, Jessie !• 



HERE'S A HEALTH TO ANE I LO'E 
DEAR. 

Tune—" Here's a Health to them that's awa." 

Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear — . 
Here's a health to aue I Jo'e dear ; 



HOW CRUEL ARE THE PARENTS. 

ALTERED FROM AN OLD ENGLISH SONG. 

Tune—" John Anderson my jo." 

How cruel are the parents 

Wlio riches only prize, 
And to the wealthy booby. 

Poor woman sacrifice. 
Meanwhile the hapless daughter 

Has but a choice of strife ; 
To shun a tyrant father's hate, 

Become a wretched wife. 

The ravening hawk pursuing. 

The trembling dove thus flies, 
To shun impelling ruin 

A while her pinions tries ; 
'Till of escape despairing. 

No shelter or retreat, 
She trusts the ruthless falconer. 

And drops beneath his feet. 



HOW LANG AND DREARY IS THE 
NIGHT. 

Tune—" Cauld Kail in Aberdeen, 

How lang and dreary is the night, 

When I am frae my dearie ; 
I restless lie frae e'en to morn. 

Though I were ne'er sae weary. 

For, oh, her lanehj nights are lang, 
Aiid, oh, her dreams are eerie, 

And, oh, Jier u'idow'd heart is sair. 
That's absent frae her dearie. 



* Written upon Miss Lewars, now Mrs. Thomson, 
of Dumfries ; a true friend and a great favourite of 
the poet, and, at his death, one of the most sympa- 
thizing friends of his afflicttxl widow. 



SONGS. 



205 



When I think on the lightsome days 
I spent wi' thee, my dearie ; 

And now what se;is between us roar. 
How can I but be eerie ? 
For, oh, §T. 

How slow ye move, ye heavy hours ; 

The joyless day how dreary ! 
It wasna sae ye ghnted by. 

When I was wi' my dearie. 
For, oh, §-c. 



I AM A SON OF MARS. 

Tunc — " Soldier's Joy." 

I AM a son of Mars who have been in many 

wars, 
And show ray cuts and scars wherever I come ; 
This here was for a wench, and that other in a 

trench, 
When welcoming the French at the sound of 

the drum. 

Lai de dmidle, 8^c. 

My 'prenticeship I past where ray leader 

breath'd his last, 
WTien the bloody die was cast on the heights of 

Abram ; 
I served out my trade when the gallant game 

was play'd. 
And the Moro low was laid at the sound of (he 

drum. 

Lai de daucMe, S^c, 

1 lastly was with Curtis, among the floating 

batt'ries. 
And there I left for witness an arm and a limb ; 
Yet let my country need me, with Elliot to 

head me, 
I'd clatter ray stumps at the sound of the drum. 
Lai de daudlc, &,'c. 

And now tho' I must beg with a wooden arm 

and leg. 
And many a tatter'd rag hanging over ray bum, 
I'm as happy with my wallet, my bottle and my 

callet, 
As when I us'd in scarlet to follow a drum. 
Lai de dandle, §t. 

"What tho' with hoary locks, I must stand the 

winter shocks, 
Beneath the woods and rocks often times for a 

home, 
When the tother bag I sell, and the tother 

bottle tell, 
I could meet a troop of liell at the sound of the 

drum, 

Lai de davdle, S^c. 



I DREAM'D I LAY WHERE FLOWERS 
WERE SPRINGING. 

These two stanzas I composed when I waa 
seventeen, and are among the oldest of my print- 
ed pieces. 

I drfam'd I lay where flowers were springing, 

Gaily in the sunny beam ; 
List'ning to the wild birds singing, 

Ry a falling, crystal stream : 
Straight the sky grew black and daring ; 

Thro' the woods the whirlwinds rave ; 
Trees with aged arms were warring, 

O'er the swelling, drumlie wave. 

Such was my life's deceitful morning. 

Such the pleasures I enjoy'd ; 
But lang or noon, loud tempests storming, 

A' iny flow'ry bliss destroy 'd. 
Tho' fickle fortune has deceiv'd me. 

She promis'd fair, and perform'd but ill ; 
Of mony a joy and hope bereav'd me, 

I boar a heart shall support me still. 



I'LL AYE CA' IN BY YON TOUN. 

Tune — " I'll gang nae mair to yon town." 

Via. aye ca' in by yon toun. 

And by you garden green again ; 

I'll aye ca' in by yon toun, 

And see my bonuie Jean again. 



There's nane shall ken, there's nane shall guss 
What brings me back the gate again. 

But she, my fairest faithfu' lass ; 
And stowlins we shall meet again. 

She'll wander by the aiken tree. 

When trystin time draws near again j 

And when her lovely form I see, 
O haith, she's doubly dear again. 



1 aye ca' in by yon toun. 

And by yon garden green again : 

1 aye ca' in by yon toun. 

And see niy bonnie Jean again. 



I'M O'ER YOUNG TO MARRY YET. 

The chorus is old : — the rest of it, such as it 
is, is mine. 

I'm my mammy's ae bairn, 

Wi' unco folk, I weary, Sir j 
And lying in a man's bed, 

I'm fley'd wad mak me irie, Sir. 
I'm o'er young, I'm o'er young, 
Im o'er yonvg to marry yet ; 



206 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Fm o'er young., twad he a sin 
To tak me frae rmj mammtj yet, 

Hallowmas is come and gane, 

The nights are lang in winter, Sir ; 

And you and I in ae bed, 

In trowth I darena venture, Sir. 
Tm o'er young, §*c. 

My minnie coft me a new gown, 

Th» kirk maun hae the gracing o't ; 

War I to lie wi' you, kind Sir, 

I'm fear'd ye'd spoil the lacing o't. 
Fin o'er young, §-c. 

Fu' loud and shrill the frosty win<l 
Blaws thro' the leafless timmer, Sir ; 

But should ye come this gate again, 
I'll aulder be gin simmer, Sir. 

I'm o'er young, Sfc. 



IT IS NA, JEAN, THY BONNIE FACE. 

These were originally English verses : — ] 
gave them their Scotch dress. 

It is na, Jean, thy bonnie face, 

Nor shape that I admire, 
Altho' thy beauty and thy grace 

Might weel awauk desire. 
Something in ilka part o' thee 

To praise, to love, I find ; 
But dear as is thy form to me, 

Still dearer is thy mind. 

Nae mair ungen'rous wish I hae, 

Nor stronger in my breast. 
Than, if I canna mak thee sae, 

At least to see thee blest. 
Content am I, if heaven shall give 

But happiness to thee : 
And as wi' thee I'd wish to live. 

For thee I'd bear to die. 



JAI^IIE, COME TRY ME. 

Jamie, come try me, 
Jamie, come try me ; 
If ye wad win my love, 
Can ye na try me ? 
If ye should ask my love, 
Could 1 deny thee ? 
If ye wad win my love, 
Jamie, come try me. 

My heart leaps light, mylovo, 
When ye come nigh me ; 
If I had wings, my love, 
Think na I'd fly thee. 



If ye wail woo me, love, 
Wha can espy thee ? 
I'm far aboon fortune, love, 
When I am by thee. 

I come from my chamber 
,When the moon's glowing ; 
I walk by the streamlet 
'JMang the broom flowing. 
The bright moon and stars, love- 
None else espy me ; 
And if ye wad win my love, 
Jamie, come try me. 



JOCKIE'S TA'EN THE PARTING KISS. 

Jockie's ta'en the parting kiss, 

Ower the mountains he is gane ; 
And with him is a' my bliss ; 

Nought but griefs wi' me remain. 
Spare my love, ye winds that blaw, 

Plashy sleets, and beating rain I 
Spare my love, thou feathery snaw. 

Drifting o'er the frozen plain ! 

When the shades of evening creep 

Ower the day's fair gladsome ee, 
Sound and safely may he sleep. 

Sweetly biythe his waukening be ! 
He will think on her he loves, 

Fondly he'll repeat her name ; 
For, where'er he distant roves, 

Jockie's heart is still at hame. 



JOHN BARLEYCORN. * 

A BALLAD. 

There were three kings into the east, 
Three kings both great and high, 

An' they hae sworn a solemn oath 
John Barleycorn should die. 

They took a plough and plongh'd him down, 

Put clods upon his head, 
And they hae sworn a solemn oath 

John Barleycorn Avas dead. 

But the cheerful spring came kindly on. 

And show'rs began to fall ; 
John Barleycorn got up again, 

And sore surpris'd them all. 

The sultry suns of summer came. 

And he grew thick and strong, 
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears. 

That no one should him wrong. 



* This is partly composed on the plan of an old 
song known by the same name. 



SONGS. 



207 



The sober autuma enter'd mild, 
When he grew wan and pale ; 

flis bending joints and drooping head 
Show'd he began to fail. 

His colour sickcn'd more and more, 

He faded into age ; 
And then his enemies began 

To show their deadly rage. 

They've ta'en a weapon long and sharp, 

And cut him by the knee ; 
Then ty'd him fast upon a cart, 

Like a rogue for forgerie. 

They laid him down upon his back, 

And c-udgell'd him full sore ; 
They hung him up before the storm, 

And turu'd him o'er and o'er. 

They filled up a darksome pit 

With water to the brim, 
They heaved in John Barleycorn, 

There let him sink or swim. 

They laid him out upon the floor. 

To work him farther woe. 
And still as signs of life appear'd, 

They toss'd him to and fro. 

They wasted o'er a scorching flame, 

The marrow of his bones ; 
But a miller used him worst of all. 

For he crush'd him between two stones. 

And they hae ta'en his very heart's blood 
And (irank it round and round ; 

And still the more and more they drank, 
Their joy did more abound. 

John Barleycorn was a hero bold. 

Of noble enterprise. 
For if you do but taste his blood, 

'Twill make your courage rise. 

'Twill make a man forget his woe ; 

'Twill heighten all his joy: 
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing, 

Tho' the tear were in her eye. 

Then let us toast John Barleycorn, 

Each man a glass in hand ; 
And may his great posterity 

Ne'er fail in old Scotland ! 



JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, IMPROVED. 

John Anderson, my jo, John, I wonder what 

you mean, 
To rise so soon in the mojuing, and sit up so 

late at e en, 



Ye'll blear out a' your een, John, and why 

should you do so, 
Gang sooner to your bed at e'en, John Anderson, 

my jo. 

John Anderson, my jo, John, when nature first 
began 

To try her canny hand, John, her master-work 
was man ; 

And you amang them a', John, sae trig frae 
tap to toe, 

She proved to be nae journey-work, John An- 
derson, my jo. 

John Anderson, my jo, John, ye were my first 
conceit, 

And ye na think it strange, Johu, tho' 1 ca' ye 
trim and neat ; 

Tho' some folk say ye're auld, John, I never 
think ye so, 

But I think ye're ave the same to me, John An- 
derson, my jo. 

John Anderson, my jo, John, we've seen our 

bairns' bairns. 
And yet, my dear John Anderson, I'm happy 

in your arms, 
And sae are ye in mine, John — I'm sure ye'll 

ne'er say no, 
Tho' the days are gane, that we have seen, John 

Anderson, my jo. 

John Anderson, my jo, John, what pleasure 
does it gie 

To see sae mony sprouts, John, spring up 'tween 
you and me. 

And ilka lad and lass, John, in our footsteps to go, 

Makes perfect heaven here on earth, John An- 
derson, my jo. 

John Anderson, my jo, John, when we were 
first acquaint. 

Your locks were like the raven, your bonnie 
brow was brent. 

But now your head's turned bald, John, your 
locks are like the snaw, 

Yet blessings on your frosty pow, John Ander- 
son, my jo. 

Jolm Anderson, my jo, John, frae year to year 
we've past. 

And soon that year maun come, John, wUl 
bring us to our last : 

But let nae that aftVight us, Jolm, our hearts 
were ne'er our foe, 

While in innocent delight we lived, John An- 
derson, my jo. 



John Anderson, my jo, John, we clam the hill 

thegither. 
And mony a canty day, John, we've had wi* 

ane anither ; 



208 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Now we maun totter down, John, but hand in 
hand we'll go, 

And we'll sleeji theglther at the foot, John An- 
derson, my jo. 



LAST IMAY A BRAW WOOER. 



Tune- 



The Lothian Lassie." 



Last May a braw wooer cam' down the lang 

And sair wi' his love he did deave me ; 
I said there was naething I hated like men : 
The deuce gae wi' him to believe me, believe 

me. 
The deuce gae wi' him to believe me ! 

He spak' o' the darts o' my bonnie black een. 
And vow'd for my love he was deein'. 

I said he micht dee when he hked for Jean ; 
The guid forgi'e me for leein', for leein', 
The guid forgi'e me for leein' ! 

A weel-stockit mailln', himsell for the laird. 
And marriage aff-hand, were his proffer. 

I never loot on that I keun'd it or cared ; 
But thocht I might hae a waur offer, waur 

offer. 
But thought I might hae a waur offer. 

But, what wad ye think, in a fortuicht or less, — 
The deil's in his taste to gang near her ! — 

He up the lang loan to my black cousin Bess — 
Guess ye how, the jaud ! I could bear her, 

could bear her. 
Guess ye how, the jaud ! I could bear her ! 

But a' the neist week, as I fretted wi' care, 
I gaed to the tryst o' Dalgarnock ; 

And wha but my braw fickle wooer was there .'' 
Wha glowr'd as he had seen a warlock, a 

warlock, 
Wha glowr'd as he had seen a warlock. 

Out ower my left shouther I gi'ed him a blink, 
Lest neebors micht say I was saucy ; 

My wooer he caper'd as he'd been in drink. 
And vow'd I was his dear lassie, dear lassie, 
And vow'd I was his dear lassie. 

I speir'd for my cousin, fou couthie and sweet, 

Gin she had recover'd her heariu' ? 
And how my auld shoon fitted her shauchled 
feet.?* 
Gude sauf us ! how he fell a-swearin', a- 

sweariu', 
(jiude sauf us ! how he fell a-swearin'. 



He begged, for gudcsake ! I wad be his wife, 
Or else I wad kill him wl' sorrow ; 

Sae, e'en to preserve the pair body in life, 
I think 1 maun wed him to-morrow, to-mor- 
row, 
I think I maun wed him to-morrow. 



* In Scotland, wlicn a cast-off lover pays his ad- 
dresses to a new mistress, that new mistress" is said to 
have got the auld shoo!i (oUl shoes) of the former one. 
Here the metiiphor is made to carry an extremely in- 
genious sarcasm at the clumsiness of the new mistress's 
person. 



LASSIE wr THE LINT- WHITE LOCKS, 

Tune — " Rothiemurchus' Rant." 

Lassie ivV the lint white locks, 

Bonnie lassie, artless lassie, 
Wilt thou wi' me tend the Jiocks 9 

Wilt thou be my dearie, O ? 

Now Nature cleads the flowery lea, 
And a' is young and sweet like thee, 
O, wilt thou share its joys wi' me. 
And say thou'lt be my dearie, O ? 
Lassie wi\ Sfc. 

And when the welcome simmer shower 
Has cheer'd ilk drooping little flower. 
We'll to the breathing woodbine bower. 
At sultry noon, my dearie, O. 
Lassie wi, §-c. 

When Cynthia lights, wi' silver ray, 
The weary shearer's hameward way, 
Through yellow- waving fields we'll stray, 
And talk o' love, my dearie, O. 
Lassie, wi', §-e. 

And when the howling wintry blast 
Disturbs my lassie's midnignt rest. 
Enclasped to my faithful breast, 
I'll comfort thee, my dearie, O. 
Lassie, wi', 8fc. 



LAY THY LOOP IN MINE, LASS 

Tune-^" O lay the loof in mine, lass." 

O LAY thy loof in mine, lass, 
In mine, lass, in mine, lass ; 
And swear on thy white hand, lass, 
That thou wilt be my ain. 

A slave to love's unbounded sway, 
He aft has wrought me muckle wae ; 
But now he is my deadly fae. 
Unless thou be my ain. 

There's raony a lass has broke my rest. 
That for a blink 1 hae lo'ed best ; 
But thou art queen within my breast, 
For ever to remain. 



SONGS. 



209 



LET NOT WOMAN E'ER COMPLAIN. 

Tune—" Duncan Gray." 

Let not woman e'er complain 

Of inconstancy in love ; 
Let not woman e'er complain. 

Fickle man is apt to rove. 

Look abroad through nature's range, 
Nature's mighty law is change ; 
Ladies, would it not be strange, 

Man should, then, a monster prove ? 

Mark the winds, and mark the skies ; 

Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow. 
Sun and moon but set to rise ; 

Round and round the seasons go. 

Why, then, ask of silly man. 
To oppose great nature's plan ? 
We'll be constant while we can, 
You can be no more, you know. 



LONG, LONG THE NIGHT. 

Tune—" Aye wakin'." 

Long, long the night, 

Heavy comes the morrow. 

While my souVs delight. 
Is on her led of sorrow. 

Can I cease to care, 

Can I cease to languish. 
While my darling fair 

Is on the couch of anguish ? . 
Long, §-c. 

Every hope is fled, 

Every fear is terror : 
Slumber e'en I dread, 

Every dream is horror. 
Long, §-c. 

Hear me, pow'rs divine ! 

Oh, in pity hear me ! 
Take aught else of mine. 

But my Cliloris spare me ! 
Long, Sfc. 



LOGAN BRAES. 

Tune — " Logan Water." 

O, Logan sweeetly didst thou glide, 
That day I was my Willie's bride ; 
And years sinsyne hae o'er us run, 
Like Logan to the simmer sun. 
But now the flowery banks appear 
Like drumlie winter, dark an drear. 
While my dear lad maun face his faes, 
Far, far frae me and Logan braes. 



Again the merry month o' May, 

Has made our hills and valleys gay ;' 

The birds rejoice in leafy bowers, 

The bees hum round the breathing flowers 

Blythe morning lifts his rosy eye, 

And evening's tears are tears of joy : 

My soul, delightless, a' surveys, 

While Willie's far frae Logan braes. 

Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush, 
Amang her nestlings sits the thrush : 
Her faithfu' mate will share her toil. 
Or wi' his song her cares beguile ; 
But I, wi' ray sweet nurslings here, 
Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer, " 
Pass widow'd nights and joyless days. 
While Willie's far frae Logan braes. 

O wae upon you, men o' state. 
That brethren rouse to deadly hate ! 
As ye make mony a fond heart mourn, 
Sae may it on your heads return ! 
How can your flinty hearts enjoy, 
The widow's tears, the orphan's cry;* 
But soon may peace bring happy days. 
And Willie, hame to Logan braes ! 



LORD GREGORY. 

Oh, mirk, mirk is this midnight hour. 

And loiid the tempests roar ; 
A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tower, 

Lord Gregory, ope thy door ! 

An exile frae her father's ha', 

And a' for loving thee ; 
At least some pity on me shaw. 

If love it may na be. 

Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove 

By bonnie Irvine side, 
Where first I own'd that virgin love 

I lang lang had denied ? 

How aften didst thou pledge the vow, 

Thou wad for aye be mine ! 
And my fond heart, itsell sae true, 

It ne'er mistrusted thine. 

Hard is thy heart. Lord Gregory, 

And flinty is thy breast ! 
Thou dart of heaven that flashes by, 

Oh, wilt thou give me rest I 

Ye mustering thunders from above. 
Your willing victim see j 



Originally, 

" Ye mind na 'mid your cruel joys, 

*' The widow's tears, the orplian's cries.'' 



47 



210 

But spare and pardon my false love 
His NVTongs to heaven and me ! * 



BURNS' WORKS. 



LINES ON LORD DAER. 

This wot ye all whom it concerns, 
I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns, 

October twenty-third, 
A ne'er-to-be-forgotten day, 
Sae far I sprackled f up the brae, 

I dinner'd wi' a Lord. 

I've been at drunken writers' \ feasts, 
Nay, been bitch fou 'raang godly priests, 

Wi' rev'rence be it spoken ; 
I've even join'd the honour'd jorum. 
When mighty Squireships of the quorum, 

Their hydra drouth did sloken. 

But wi' a Lord — stand out my shin, 
A Lord — a Peer — an Earl's son, 

Up higher yet my bonnet ; 
An' sic a Lord — lang Scotch ells twa, 
Our peerage he o'erlooks them a' 

As I look o'er a sonnet. 

But O for Hogarth's magic power ! 
To show Sir Bardy's willyart glowr,§ 

And how he stared and stammer'd, 
Whan goavan || as if led wi' branks,^ 
An' stumpan on his ploughman shanks, 

He in the parlour hammer 'd. 



I sidling shelter' d in a nook. 
An' at his Lordship steal't a look, 

Like some portentous omen ; 
Except good sense and social glee, 
An' (what surprised me) modesty, 

I marked nought uncommon. 

I watch'd the symptoms o' the Great, 
The gentle pride, the lordly state 

The arrogant assuming; 
The fient a pride, nae pride had he. 
Nor sauce, nor state that I could see, 

Mair than an honest ploughman. 

Then from his Lordship I shall learn, 
Hencefortn to meet with unconcern, 

One rank as well's another ; 
Nae honest worthy man need care. 
To meet with noble youthful Daer, 

For he but meets a brother. 

These lines will be read with no common in- 
terest bv all who remember the unaffected sim- 



* This song was composed upon the subject of the 
well-known and very beautiful ballad, entitled " The 
Lass of Locliroyan." 

t Clainbered. + Attorneys. 

^ Frightened stare. || Walking stupidlv. 

'J Akiiiduf biullc. 



plicity of appearance, the sweetness of counte- 
nance and manners, and the unsuspecting bene- 
volence of heart, of Basil, Lord Daer. — It was a 
younger brother of his who, as Earl of Selkirk, 
became so well known as the advocate of volun- 
tary emigration, and who settled the colony 
upon the Red River. 



MACPHERSON'S FAREWELL. 

Tune-^" Macpherson's Rant" 

Fa RE WEIL, ye prisons dark and strong, 

The wretch's destinie ! 
Macpherson's time will not be long 
On yonder gallows tree ! 

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly^ 

Sae dantonly gaed he, 
He play'd a spring, and danced it rounds 
Beneath the gallows tree ! 

Oh, what is death, but parting breath ? 

On mony a bluidy plain 
I've daur'd his face, and in this place 

I scorn him yet again. 

Sae rantingly, ^c. 

Untie these bands frae aff my hands, 

And bring to me my sword ; 
And tliere's nae man in a' Scotland 

But I'll brave him at a word, 
Sae rantingly, 8fc. 

I've lived a life of sturt and strife ; 

I die by treacherie : 
It burns my heart I must depart, 

And not avenged be. 

Sae rantingly, Sj-c. 

Now fareweil, light, thou sunshine bright, 

And all beneath the sky ! 
May coward shame distain his name, 

The wretch that dares not die ! 
Sae rantingly, 8fc. 



MARIA'S DWELLING. 
Tune^^" The last time I cam o'er the Moor." 

Farewell thou stream that winding flows 

Around Maria's dwelling ! 
Ah cruel mem'ry ! spare the throes 

Within my bosom sweUing : 
Condemn 'd to drag a hopeless chain. 

And still in secret languish ; 
To feel a fire in ev'ry vein. 

Yet dare not speek my anguish. 

The wretch of love, unseen, unknown, 
I fain my crime would cover : 



SONGS. 



211 



The bui-stiug sigh, th' unweeting groaa 

Betray the hopeless lover. 
I know my doom must be despair, 

Thou wilt, nor canst relieve me ; 
But oh, IMaria, hear one prayer, 

For pity's sake forgive me. 

The music of thy tongue I heard. 

Nor wist while it enslav'd me ; 
I saw thine eyes, yet nothing fear'd, 

'Till fears no more had saved me. 
The unwary sailor thus aghast. 

The wheeling torrent viewing ; 
"Mid circling horrors yields at last 

To overwhelmius: ruin. 



MARK YONDER POMP. 

Tune—" Deil tak' the wars." 

Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion, 

Round the wealthy, titled bride : 
But when compared with real passion, 

Poor is all that princely pride. 

What are their showy treasures ? 

What are their noisy pleasures ? 
The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art. 

The polish'd jewel's blaze. 

May draw the wond'ring gaze. 

And courtly grandeur bright. 

The fancy may delight. 
But never, never can come near the heart. 

But did you see my dearest Chloris, 

In simplicity's array ; 
Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is, 

Shrinking from the gaze of day. 

O then the heart alarming, 

And all resistless charming, 
In Love's delightful fetters she chains the wil- 
ling soul ! 

Ambition would disown 

The world's imperial crown. 

Even Av'rice would deny 

His worshipp'd deity, 
And feel thro' every vein Love's raptures roll. 



To thee my fancy took its wing— 
T sat, but neither heard nor saw. 

Though this was fair, and that was braw, 
And you the toast o' a' the town, 

I sigh'd, and said amang them a', 
Ye are na Mary IMorison. 

O, Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, 

Wha for thy sake wad gladly dee ? 
Or canst thou break that heart of his, 

Whase only faut is loving thee ? 
If love for love thou wilt na gie, 

At least be pity to me shown ; 
A thocht ungentle canna be 

The thocht of Mary Morison. 



MARY i^IORISON. 
Tune-—" Bide ye yet" 

O, Mary, at thy window be ; 

It is the wished, the trysted hour : 
Those smiles and glances let me see 

That make the miser's treasure poor. 
How blythely wad I bydc the stoure, 

A weary slave frae sun to sun. 
Could I the rich reward secure, 

The lovely Mary Morison ! 

Yestreen, when to the stented string 
The dance gaed through the lichtit ha' 



MEG O' THE MILL. 

Tune—" O bonnie lass, will you lie in a barrack." 

O, KEX ye what Meg o' the IVIill has gotten. 
An' ken ye what Meg o' the IVIill has gotten ? 
She has gotten a coof wi' a claut o' siller. 
And broken the heart o' the barley miller. 

The miller was strappin', the miller was ruddy ; 
A heart like a lord, and a hue like a lady : 
The laird was a wuddiefu' bleerit knurl ; 
She's left the guid fallow, and ta'en the churl. 

The miller he hecht her a heart leal and loving : 
The laird did address her wi' matter mair mo- 
ving ; 
A fine pacing-horse wi' a clear-chain'd bridle, 
A whip by her side, and a bonny side-saddle. 

O wae on the siller, it's sae prevailing ; 
And wae on the love that's fix'd on a mailin' ! 
A tocher's nae word in a true lover's parle. 
But, Gie me my love, and a fig for the warl ! 



MUSING ON THE ROARING OCEAN. 

I COMPOSED these verses out of compliment 
to a Mrs. M'Lachlan, whose husband is an of- 
ficer in the East Indies. 

Tune — •' Drumion Dubh." 

Musing on the roaring ocean, 
Which divides my love and me ; 

Wearying heaven in warm devotion. 
For his weal where'er he be. 

Hope and fear's alternate billow- 
Yielding late to nature's law, 

Whispring spirits round my pillow, 
Talk of hin: that's far awa. 

Ye whom sorrow never wounded, 
Ye who never shed a tear, 



212 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Care-untroubled, joy-surrounded, 
Gaudy day to you is dear. 

Gentle niglit, do thou befriend me. 
Downy sleep the curtain draw ; 

Spirits kind, again attend me, 
Talk of him that's far awa ! 



MY BONNIE MARY. 

This air is Oswald's ; the first half-stanza 
of the song is old, the rest mine. * 

Go fetch to me a pint o' wine. 

An' fill it in a silver tassie ; 
That I may drink before I go, 

A service to my bonnie lassie ; 
The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith ; 

Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry ; 
The ship rides by the Bervvick-law, 

And I maun lea'e my bonnie Mary. 

The trumpets sound, the banners fly, 

The glittering spears are ranked ready j 
The shouts o' war are heard afar, 

The battle closes thick and bloody ; 
But it's not the roar o' sea or shore 

Wad make me langer wish to tarry ; 
Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar, 

It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary. 



MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS. 

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not 

here^ 
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; 
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, 
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the 

North, 
The birth-place of valour, the country of worth ; 
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove. 
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. 

Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with 

snow ; 
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below ; 
Farewell to the forests and wild hanging woods ; 
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. 
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not 

here ; 
]\Iy heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer, 
Chasing the wild deer and following the roe — ■ 
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 



* This song, which Burns here acknowledges to be 
his own, was first introduced by him in a letter to 
Mrs. Dunlop, as two old stanzas. 



MY LADY'S GOWN THERE'S GAIRS 
UPON'T. 

My lady's gown there's gairs upon't, 
And gowden flowers sae rare upon't ; 
But Jenny's jimps and jirkinet. 
My lord thinks muckle mair upon't. 

My lord a-hunting he is gane, 

But hounds or hawks wi* him are nane; 

By Colin's cottage lies his game. 

If Colin's Jenny be at hame. 

My lady's white, my lady's red, 
And kith and kin o' Cassilis' blude. 
But her ten-pund lands o' tocher gude 
Were a' the charms his lordship lo'ed. 

Out o'er yon moor, out o'er yon moss, 
Whare gor-cocks through the heather pass ; 
There wons auld Colin's bonny lass, 
A lily in a wilderness. 

Sae sweetly move her genty limbs, 
Like music notes o' lover's hymns : 
The diamond dew is her een sae blue. 
Where laughing love sae wanton swims. 

My lady's dink, my lady's drest, 
The flower and fancy o' the west ; 
But the lassie that man lo'es the best, 
O that's the lass to mak him blest. 



MY NANNIE'S AWA. 

Tune—" There'll never be peace till Jamie comes 
hame." 

Now in her green mantle blythe nature arrays, 
And listens the lambkins that bleat ower the 

braes. 
While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw ; 
But to me it's dehghtless — my Nannie's awa. 

The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands 

adorn, 
And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn ; 
They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw \ 
They mind me o' Nannie — and Nannie's awa. 

Thou laverock, that springs frae the dews of 

the lawn. 
The shepherd to warn of the grey-breaking 

dawn ; 
And thou mellow mavis, that hails the night-fa' ; 
Give over for pity — my Nannie's awa. 

Come, autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and grey, 
And soothe me wi' tidings o' nature's decay : 
The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw, 
Alane can delight me — my Nannie's awa. 



SONGS. 



213 



MY NANNIE, O. 
Tune—" My Nannie, O." 

Behind yon hills where Stinchar flows, 

Mang moors an' mosses many, O, 
The wintry sun the day has clos'd, 

And I'll avva to Nannie, O. 
rhe westland wind blaws loud an' shrill ; 

The night's baith mirk and rainy, O ; 
But I'll get my plaid and out I'll steal, 

An' owre the hills to Nannie, O. 

My Nannie's charming, sweet, an' young ; 

Na' artfu' wiles to win ye, O ; 
May ill befa' the flattering tongue 

That wad beguile my Nannie, O. 
Her face is fair, her heart is true, 

As spotless as she's bonnie, O : 
The opening gowan, wet wi' dew, 

Nae purer is than Nannie, O. 

A country lad is my degree, 

An' few there be that ken mc, O ; 
But what care I how few they be, 

I'm welcome aye to Nannie, O. 
My riches a* 's my penny-fee, 

An* I maun guide it cannie, O ; 
But warl's gear ne'er troubles me, 

My thoughts are a' my Nannie, O. 

Our auld Guidman delights to view 

His sheep an' kye thrive bonnie, O ; 
But I'm as blythe that bauds his pleugh, 

An' has nae care but Narmie, O. 
Come weel, come woe, I care na by, 

I'll take what Heaven will sen' me, O ; 
Nae ither care in life hae I, 

But hve, an' love my Nannie, O. 



MY PEGGY'S FACE. 

Mv Peggy's face, my Peggy's form 
The frost of Hermit age might warm ; 
My Peggy's worth, my Peggy's mind, 
Might charm the first of human kind : 
I love my Peggy's angel air. 
Her face so truly, heavenly fair, 
Her native grace so void of art, 
But I adore my Peggy's heart. 

The lily's hue, the rose's dye, 
The kindling lustre of an eye ; 
Who but owns their magic sway, 
Who but knows they all decay ! 
The tender thrill, the pitying tear. 
The generous purpose, nobly dear, 
The gentle look, that rage disarms, 
These are all immortal charms. 



MY SODGER LADDIE, 

THE soldier's D0XY*S SONG IN *' THE JOLLY 
BEGGARS." 

Tune-"" Sodger Laddie." 

I ONCE was a maid, the' I canna tell when, 
And still my delight is in proper young men ; 
Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie,— 
No wonder I'm fond of u, sodger laddie. 
Sing, Lai de lal, §-c. 

The first of my loves was a swaggering blade. 
To rattle the thundering drum was his trade ; 
His leg was so tight, and his cheek was so ruddy, 
Transported I was with my sodger laddie. 
Sing, Lal de lal, §*c. 

But the godly old chaplain left him in the lui-ch, 
The sword I forsook for the sake of the church. 
He ventur'd the soul, and I risked the body, 
'Twas then I prov'd false to my sodger laddie. 
Sing, Lal de lal, §t. 

Full soon I grew sick of my sanctified sot. 
The regiment at large for a husband I got ; 
From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready, 
I asked no more but a sodger laddie. 
Sing, Lal de lal, §'c. 

But the peace it reduc'd me to beg in de«pair. 
Till I met my old boy at Cunningham fair ; 
His rag regimental they flutter'd so gaudy. 
My heart it rejoic'd at my sodger laddie. 
Sing, Lal de lal, 8fc. 

And now I have liv'd — I know not how long, 

And still I can join in a cup or a song ; 

But whilst with both hands I can hold the glass 

steady. 
Here's to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie. 
Sing, Lal de lal, ^-c. 



MY SPOUSE NANCIE. 

Tune — " My Jo, Janet." 

Husband, husband, cease yom* strife. 
Nor longer idly rave. Sir ; 

Though I am your wedded wife, 
Yet I'm not your slave, Sir. 

One of two must still obey, 

Nancie, Nancie; 
Is it man or woman, say. 

My spouse Nancie ? 

If 'tis still the lordly word, 

Service and obedience ; 
I'll desert my sovereign lord, 

And so good-bye allegiance ! 

Sad will I be so bereft, 
Nancie, Nancie j 



2l4i 



BURNS* WORKS. 



Yet I'll try to make a shift, 
My spouse Nancie. 

My poor heart then break it must, 

My last hour I'm near it ; 
When you lay me in the dust, 

Think — think how you will bear it. 

I will hope and trust in Heaven, 

Nancie, Nancie, 
Strength to bear it will be given, 

My spouse Nancie. 

Well, Sir, from the silent dead, 
Still I'll try to daunt you ; 

Ever round your midnight bed 
Horrid sprites shall haunt you. 

I'll wed another lilie my dear 

Nancie, Nancie ; 
Then all hell will fly for fear. 

My spouse Nancie I 



MY TOCHER'S THE JEWEL. 

O MEiKLE thinks my luve o' my beauty. 

And meikle thinks my luve o' my kin ; 
But little thinks my luve I ken brawlie. 

My tocher's the jewel has charms for him. 
It's a' for the apple he'll nourish the tree ; 

It's a' for the hinnoy he'll cherish the bee, 
My laddie's sae meikle in luve wi' the siUer, 

He canna hae luve to spare for me. 

Your proffer o' luve's an arle penny, 

My tocher's the bargain ye wad buy ; 
But an' ye be crafty, I am cunnin, 

Sae ye wi' anither your fortune maun try. 
Ye're like to the timmer o' yon rotten wood, 

Ye're like to the bark o' yon rotten tree, 
Ye'll slip frae me like a knotless thread, 

And ye'll crack your credit wi' mae nor me. 



MY WIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THING, 

Tune—" My wife's a wanton wee thing." 

She is a winsome wee thing. 
She is a handsome wee thing, 
She is a bonnie wee thing, 
This sweet wee wife o' mine ! 

I never saw a fairer, 
I never loo'd a dearer ; 
And neist my heart I'll wear her, 
For fear my jewel tine. 

She is a winsome wee thing. 
She is a handsome wee thing. 
She is a bonnie wee thing, 
This sweet wee wife o' mine. 



The warld's wrack we share o't, 
The warstle and the care o't ; 
W her I'll blythely bear it, 
And think my lot divine. 



NAE-BODY. 

I HAE a wife o' my ain, 
I'll partake wi' nae-body ; 

I'll tak cuckold frae nane, 
I'll gie cuckold to nae-body. 

I hae a penny to spend. 

There — thanks to nae-body ; 
I hae naething to lend, 

I'll borrow frae nae-body. 

I am nae-body's lord, 

I'll be slave to nae-body ; 

I hae a guid braid sword, 
I'll tak dunts frae nae-body. 

I'll be merry and free, 
I'll be sad for nae-body ; 

If nae-body care for me, 
I'll care for nae-body. 



NANCY. 



Thine am I, my faithful fair. 
Thine, my lovely Nancy ; 

Ev'ry pulse along my veins, 
Ev'ry roving fancy. 

To thy bosom lay my heart, 
There to throb and languish ; 

Tho' despair had wrung its core, 
That would heal its anguish. 

Take away these rosy lips, 
Rich with balmy treasure : 

Turn away thine eyes of love. 
Lest I die with pleasure. 

What is life when wanting love ? 

Night without a morning : 
Love's the cloudless summer sun, 

Nature gay 



NOW SPRING HAS CLAD THE GROVE 
IN GREEN. 

Now spring has clad the grove in green, 

And strew'd the lea wi' flowers ; 
The furrow'd waving corn is seen 

Rejoice in fostering showers ; 



SONGS. 



215 



While ilka thing in nature join 

Their sorrows to forego, 
O why thus all alone are miue 

The weary steps of woe ! 

The trout within yon wimpling burn 

Glides swift, a silver dart, 
And safe beneath the shady thorn 

Defies the angler's art ; 
My life was ance that careless stream, 

That wanton trout was I ; 
But love, wi' unrelenting beam, 

Has scorch'd my fountains dry. 

The little flow'ret's peaceful lot, 

In yonder cliff that grows, 
Which save the linnet's flight, I wot, 

Nae ruder visit knows, 
Was mine ; till love has o'er me past, 

And blighted a' my bloom, 
And now beneath the withering blast, 

My youth and joy consume. 

The waken'd lav'rock warbling springs, 

And climbs the early sky, 
Winnowing biythe her dewy wings 

In morning's rosy eye ; 
As little reckt I sorrow's power. 

Until the flowery snare 
O' witching love, in luckless hour. 

Made me the thiall o' care. 

O had my fate been Greenland's snows, 

Or Afric's burning zone, 
Wi' man and nature leagued my foes, 

So Peggy ne'er I'd known ! 
Tbe wretch whase doom is, " hope nae mail",' 

That tongue his woes can tell ! 
Within whase bosom, save despair, ' 

Nae kinder spirits dwell. 



NOW BANK AND BRAE ARE CLAD 
IN GREEN. 

Now bank and brae are clad in green 

An' scatter'd cowslips sweetly spring, 
By Girvan's fairy haunted stream 

The birdies flit on wanton wing. 
To CassUlis' banks when e'ening fa's, 

There wi' my jNLiry let me flee. 
There catch her ilka glance of love 

The bonnie blink o' Mary's ee ! 

The child wha boasts o' warld's walth. 

Is aften laird o' meikle care ; 
But Mary she is a' my ain, 

Ah, fortune canna gie me mair ! 
Then let me range by Cassillis' banks, 

Wi' her the lassie dear to me, 
And catch her ilka glance o' love. 

The bonuic blink o' Mary's ce I 



NOW WESTLIN' WINDS. 

Tune—" I had a horse, I had nae mair." 

Now westlin* winds, and slaughtering guns, 

Bring autumn's pleasant weather ; 
The muircock springs, on whirring wings, 

Amang the blooming heather. 
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain. 

Delights the weary farmer ; 
And the moon shine's bright, when I rove at 
night. 

To muse upon my charmer. 

The partridge loves the fruitful fells ; 

The plover loves the mountains ; 
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells ; 

The soaring hern the fountains. 
Through lofty groves the cushat roves, 

Tlie path of man to shun it ; 
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush, 

The spreading thorn the linnet. 

Thus every kind their pleasure find, 

The savage and the tender ; 
Some social join, and leagues combine j 

Some solitary wander : 
x4vaunt, away ! the cruel sway. 

Tyrannic man's dominion ; 
The sportman's joy, the murdering cry, 

The flutt'ring, gory pinion. 

But, Peggy dear, the evening's clear, 

Thick flies the skimming swallow ; 
The sky is blue, the fields in view. 

All fading green and yellow : 
Come let us stray our gladsome way. 

And view the charms of nature ; 
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn, 

And every happy creature. 

We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk. 

Till the silent moon shine clearly ; 
I'll grasp thy waist, and fondly press't. 

And swear I love thee dearly. 
Not vernal showers to budding flowers. 

Not autumn to the farmer, 
So dear can be as thou to me, 

jMy fair, my lovely charmer ! 



OF A' THE AIRTS THE WIND CAN 
BLAW. 

Tunc — " Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey." 

I COMPOSED this song out of compUment to 
Mrs. Burns. It was during the honey-moon. 

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, 

I dearly like the west, 
For there the bonnie lassie lives. 

The lass that I loe best : 
Tho' wild woods grow, and rivers low, 

Wi' mony a lull between, 



216 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Baitli day and nlglit, my fancy's flight 
Is ever wi' my Jean. 

I see her in the dewy flow'r, 

Sae lovely, sweet, and fair ; 
I hear her voice in ilka bird, 

Wi' music charm the air : 
There's not a bonnie flower that springs, 

By fountain, shaw, or green, 
Nor yet a bonnie bird that sings, 

But minds me o' my Jean. 

Upon the banks o' flowmg Clyde 

The lasses busk them braw ; 
But when their best they hae put on, 

My Jeanie dings them a' ; 
In hamely weeds she far exceeds 

The fairest o' the town ; 
Baith sage and gay confess it sae, 

Tho' drest in russet gown. 

The gamesome lamb, that sucks its dam, 

Mair harmless canna be ; 
She has nae faut, (if sic ye ca't), 

Except her love for me : 
The sparkling dew, o' clearest hue, 

Is like her shining een ; 
In shape and air, nane can compare 

Wi' my sweet lovely Jean. 

O blaw, ye westlin winds, blaw saft 

Amang the leafy trees ; 
Wi' gentle gale, frae muir and dale, 

Bring hame the laden bees, 
And bring the lassie back to me 

That's aye sae neat and clean ; 
Ae blink o' her wad banish care, 

Sae lovely is my Jean. 

What sighs and vows amang the knowes, 

Hae past atween us twa ! 
How fain to meet, how wae to part 

That day she gaed awa ! 
The powers aboon can only ken, 

To whom the heart is seen, 
That nane can be sae dear to me 

As my sweet lovely Jean. 



O, AY MY WIFE SHE DANG ME. 

Tune-—" O, ay my Wife she dang me." 

O, ay my wife she dang me, 
A.nd aft my wife she hanged me f 
If ye gie a woman a' her will, 
Gude faith, shell soon owergang ye. 

On peace and rest my mind was bent, 

And, fool I was, I married ; 
But never honest man's intent 

As cursedly miscarried ! 
O, ay my wife, S^c, 



Some sair o' comfort still at last, 
When a' thir days are dune, man — 

My pains o' hell on earth is past, 
I'm sure o' heaven aboon, man. 
O, ay my wife, iSj-c. 



O BONNIE WAS YON ROSY BRIER. 

O BONNIE was yon rosy brier, 

That blooms sae far frae haunt o' man ; 
And bonnie she, and ah ! how dear ! 

It shaded frae the e'enin' sun. 

Yon rosebuds in the morning dew 

How pure, amang the leaves sae green ; 

But purer was the lover's vow 

They witness'd in their shade yestreen. 

All in its rude and prickly bower. 

That crimson rose, how sweet and fair ! 

But love is far a sweeter flower 
Amid life's thorny path o' care. 

The pathless wild, and wimpling burn, 
Wi' Chloris in my arms, be mine ; 

And I the world, nor wish, nor scorn. 
Its joys and griefs alike resign. 



O, FOR ANE AND TWENTY, TAM. 

Tune — " The Moudiewort." 

An^ O, for ane and twenty, Tarn f 
An hey, sweet ane and twenty. Tarn ! 

Til learn my kin a rattling sang, 
An" I saw ane and twenty, Tarn! 

They snool me sair, and haud me down, 
And gar me look like Bluntie, Tam ! 

But three short years will soon wheel roun'. 
And then comes ane and twenty, Tam ! 
An O, for, Sfc. 

A gleib o' Ian', a claut o' gear. 
Was left me by my auntie, Tam ; 

At kith or kin I need na' spier, 
An' I saw ane and twenty, Tam. 
An' O, for, 8fc. 

They'll hae me wed a wealthy coof, 

Tho' I mysel hae plenty, Tam ; 
But hears't thou, laddie, there's my loof, 

I'm thine at ane and twenty, Tam ! 
A71' Offor, Sfc. 



i 



SONGS. 



217 



OH, GIN MY LOVE WERE YON RED 
ROSE. 

Tune-'" Hughie Graham." 

Oh, gin my love were yon red rose 

That grows upon the castle wa', 
And I mysell a drap o' dew, 

Into her bonnie breast to fa' ! 
Oh, there, beyond expression blest, 

I'd feast on beauty a' the nicht ; 
Seated on her silk-saft faulds to rest, 

Till fleyed awa by Phoebus' licht. 

ADDITIONAL STANZA BV BURNS. 

O, WERE my love yon lilac fair, 

Wi' purple blossoms to the spring ; 
And I a bird to shelter there, 

When wearied on my little wing ; 
How I wad mourn when it was torn 

By autumn wild, and winter rude ! 
How I wad sing on wanton wing, 

When youthfu' May its bloom renewed. 



OH, WERT THOU IN THE CAULD 
BLAST. 

Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast, 

On yonder lea, on yonder lea ; 
My pluidie to the angry airt, 

I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee : 
Or (lid misfortune's bitter storms 

Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, 
Thy bield should be my bosom, 

To share it a', to share it a'. 

Or were I in the wildest waste, 

Siie black and bare, sae black and bare, 
The desert were a paradise. 

If thou wert there, if thou wert there. 
Or were I monarch of the globe. 

With thee to reign, Avith thee to reign ; 
The brightest jewel in my crown 

Wad be my queen, wad be my queen. 



O LEAVE NOVELLES, YE MAUCHLINE 
BELLES. 

A FRAGMENT. 

Tune—" Donald Blue." 

O LEAVE novelles, ye INIauchline belles, 
Ye're safer at your spinning wheel ; 

Such witching books are baited hooks, 
For rakish rooks like Rob Mossgiel. 
Sing tal, lal, lay. 

Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons, 
They make your youthful fancies reel, 



They heat your brains, and fire your veins, 
And then you're prey for Rob Mossgiel. 
Sing tal, lal, lay. 

Beware a tongue that's smoothly hung ; 

A heart that warmly seeks to feel ; 
That feeling heart but acts a part, 

'Tis rakish art in Rob Mossgiel. 
Sing tal, lal, lay. 

The frank address, the soft caress. 

Are worse than poison'd darts of steel, 

The frank address, and politesse, 
Are all finesse in Rob Mossgiel. 
Sing tal, lal, lay. 



O LET ME IN THIS AE NIGHT 

Tune — '• Let me in this ae night." 

O LASSIE, art thou sleeping yet, 

Or art thou wakin, I would wit. 
For love has bound me hand aud foot. 
And I would fain be in, jo. 

O let me in this ac night, 

This ae, ae, ae night. 
For pity's sake this ae night, 
O rise and let me in, jo. 

Thou heai'st the winter wind and weet, 
Nae star blinks thro' the driving sleet, 
Tak pity on my weary feet. 

And shield me frae the rain, jo. 
O let me in, §-f. 



The bittor blast that round me blaws 
Unheedetl howls, unheeded fa's ; 
The cauldness o' thy heart's the cause 
Of a' my grief and pain, jo. 
O let me in, Sfc. 

HER ANSWER. 

O TELL nae me o' wind and rain. 
Upbraid noe me wi' cauld disdain, 
Gae back the roail ye cam again, 
I winna let yon in, jo. 

I tell you now this ae night. 

This ae, ae, ae night ; 
And ance for a\ this ae night ; 
I winna let you in, jo. 

The snellest blast at mirkest hours, 
That round the pathless wand'rer pours, 
Is nought to what poor she endures 
That's trusted faithless man, jo. 
/ tell you now, 8fc. 

The sweetest flower that deck'd the mead. 
Now trodden like the vilest weed : 
Let simple maid the lesson read, 
The weird may be her ain, jo, 
/ tell you now, Sfc, 



48 



218 



BURNS' WORKS. 



The bird that charm'd his suinmer-day, 
Is now the cruel fowler's pi'ey ; 
Let witless, trustin_^ woman say 
How aft her fate's the same, jo. 
/ tell you now, S^c. 



O LUVE WILL VENTURE IN. 

O LUVE will venture in, where it daur na weel 

be seen, 
O luve will venture in, where wisdom ance has 

been, 
But I will down yon river rove, amang the 

wood sae green, 
And a' to pu' a posie to my ain dear May. 

The primrose I will pu', the firstling o' the year. 

And I will pu' the pink, the emblem o' my dear, 

For she's the pink o' v/omankind, and blooms 

without a peer ; 

And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

I'll pu' the budding rose, when Phoebus peeps 

in view. 
For it's like a baumy kiss o' her sweet bonie 

mou; 
The hyacinth's for constancy wi' its unchanging 

blue. 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

The lily it is pure, and the lily it is fair, 
And in her lovely bosom I'll place the lily there ; 
The daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air. 
And a* to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

The hawthorn I will pu', wi' its locks o' siller 

Where, like an aged man, it stands at break o' 

day, 
But the songster's nest within the bush I winna 

tak away ; 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 

The woodbine I will pu', when the e'ening star 

is near. 
And the diamond draps o' dew shall be her een 

sae clear ; 
The violet's for modesty which weel she fa's to 

wear ; 
And a' to be a posie to my ain dear ]\Iay. 

I'll tie the' posie round wi' the silken band o' 

luve. 
And I'll place it in her breast, and I'll swear by 

a' above. 
That to my latest draught o' life the band shall 

ne'er remuve, 
And this will be a posie to my ain dear May. 



O MAY, THY MORN. 

O IMay, thy morn was ne'er sae sweet, 
As the mirk night o' December ; 

For sparkling was the rosy wine. 
And private was the chamber : 

And dear was she I darna name. 
But I will aye remember. 
And dear, §-c. 

And here's to them, that like oursel, 
Can push about the jorum ; 

And here's to them that wish us weel, 
IMay a' that's gude watch o'er them : 

And here's to them we darna tell, 
The dearest o' the quorum, 
And here's to, §"c. 



ON CESSNOCK BANKS THERE LIVES 
A LASS.* 

Tune — " If he be a butcher neat and trim." 

On Cessnock banks there lives a lass. 
Could I describe her shape and mien ; 

The graces of her weelfar'd face. 

And the glancin' of her sparkhn' e'en. 

She's fresher than the morning dawn 
When rising Phoebus first is seen, 

^Vl^en dewdrops twinkle o'er the lawn ; 
An' she's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 

She's stately like yon youthful ash. 

That grows the cowslip braes between, 

And shoots its head above each bush ; 
An' she's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 

She's spotless as the flow'ring thorn 

With flow'rs so white and leaves so green, 

When purest in the dewy morn ; 

An' she's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 

Her looks are like the sportive lamb, 
When flow'ry IMay adorns the scene, 

That wantons round its bleating dam ; 
An' she's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 

Her hair is like the curling mist 

That shades the mountain side at e'en, 

When flow'r-reviving rains are past ; 
An' she's twa glancin' sparklin* e'en. 

Her forehead's like the show'ry bow, 
When shining sunbeams intervene 

And gild the distant mountain's brow ; 
An' she's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 



* rms song was an cany production. »t was re- 
covered tVom the oral communication of a lady resid- 
ing at (Mp.sgow whom the Bard iu early life affection- 
I atcly admired. 



SONGS. 



219 



Her voice is like the cv'ning thrush 
That sings in Cessnock banks unseen, 

While his mate sits nestling in the hush ; 
An' she's twa. glancin' spaikhn' c'eu. 

Her lips are like the cherries ripe, 
That sunny walls from boreas screen, 

Thoy tempt the taste and charm the sight 
An' she's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 

Her teeth arc like a flock of sheep, 
With fleeces newly washcn clean, 

That slowly mount the rising step ; 
An' she's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 

Her breath is like the friigrant breeze 
That gently stirs the blossom'd bean, 

When Phffibus sinks behind the seas ; 
An' she's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 

But it's not her air, her form, her face, 
Tho' matching beauty's fabled queen, 

But the mind that shines in ev'ry grace 
An' cliiefly in her sparklin' e'en. 



ON THE SEAS AND FAR AWAY 
Tune-^" O'er the hills and far away." 

How can my poor heart be glad, 

When absent from my sailor lad ? 

How can I the thought forego. 

He's on the seas to meet his foe ! 

Let me wander, let me I'ove, 

Still my heart is with my love ; 

Nightly dreams and thoughts by day 

Are with him that's far away. 
On the seas and far aivay. 
On stormij seas and far arc ay ; 
Nightly dreams and thoughts by day, 
Are aye with him thafsfar away. 

When in summer's noon I faint, 
As weary flocks around me pant, 
Haply in this scorching sun 
My sailor's thund'ring at his gun : 
Bullets, spare my only joy ! 
Bullets, spare my darling boy ! 
Fate, do with me what you may, 
Spare but him that's far away ! 

On the seas and far atcay, ^c. 

At the starless midnight hour. 

When winter rules with boundless power, 

As the storms the forests tear. 

And thunders rend the howling air, 

Listening to the doubling roar. 

Surging on the rocky shore. 

All I can — I weep and pray 

For his weal that's far away. 

On the seas and far away, Sfc. 



Peace, thy olive wand extend, 
And bid wild war his ravage end, 
Man with brother man to meet, 
And as a brother kindly greet. 
Then may heaven with prosperous gales 
Fill ray sailor's welcome sails. 
To my arms their charge convey, 
My dear- lad that's far away. 

On the seas and far aivay, 8fc. 



ON A BANK OF FLOWERS. 

Tune — " On a bank of flowers." 

On a bank of flowers, on a summer day. 

For summer lightly drest, 
The youthful, blooming Nelly lay, 

With love and sleep opprest ; 
Allien Willie, wandering through the wood. 
Who for her favour oft had sued ; 
He gazed, he wished, he feared, he blushed, 

And trembled where he stood. 

Her closed eyes, like weapons sheathed. 

Were sealed in soft repose ; 
Her lips, still as she fragrant breathed, 

It richer dyed the rose. 
The springing lilie, sweetly prest, 
Wild wanton kissed her rival breast. 
He gazed, he wished, he feared, he blushed. 

His bosom ill at rest. 

Her robes, light waving in the breeze. 

Her tender limbs embrace ; 
Her lovely form, her native ease. 

All harmony and grace : 
Tumultuous tides his pulses roll, 
A faltering ardent kiss he stole ; 
He gazed, he wished, he feared, he blushed, 

And sighed his very soul. 

As flies the partridge from the brake, 

On fear-inspired wings ; 
So Nelly, starting, half awake, 

Away aftVighted springs ; 
But Willie followed — as he should ; 
He overtook her in the wood ; 
He vowed, he prayed, he found the maid 

Forgiving all and good ! 



OPEN THE DOOR TO IME, OH ': 

Oh, open the door, some pity show. 

Oh, open the door to me, oh ! 
Though thou hast been false, I'll ever prove 
true. 

Oh, open the door to me, oh ! 

Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek. 
But caulder thv love for me, oh ! 



220 



BURNS' WORKS. 



The frost that freezes the life at my heart, 
Is nought to ray pains frae thee, oh ! 

The wan moon is settinj^ behind the white wave, 
And time is setting with me, oh ! 

False friends, false love, farewell ! for mair 
I'll ne'er trouble them nor thee, oh ! 

She has open'd the door, she has opened it wide, 
She sees his pale corse on the plain, oh ! 

My true love, she cried, and sunk down by his 
side, 
Never to rise again, oh ! 



O PHILLY, HAPPY BE THAT DAY. 

Tune — " The sow's tail." 



O Philly, happy be that day 
When roving through the gather'd hay, 
My youthfu' heart was stown away, 
And by thy charms, my Pliilly. 



O Willie, aye I bless the grove 
Where first I own'd my maiden love. 
Whilst thou didst pledge the powers above, 
To be my ain dear Willie. 



As songsters of the early year 
Are ilka day mair sweet to hear, 
So ilka day to me mair dear 
And charming is my Philly. 



As on the brier the budding rose 
Still richer breathes and fairer blows. 
So in my tender bosom grows 
The love I bear my Willie. 



The milder sun and bluer sky. 
That crown my harvest cares wl' joy, 
Were ne'er sae welcome to my eye 
As is a sight of Philly. 



The little swallow's wanton wing, 
Tho' wafting o'er the flowery spring, 
Did ne'er to me sic tidings bring, 
As meeting o' ray Willie. 



The bee, that thro' the sunny hour 
Sips nectai* in the opening flower, 
Compar'd wi' my delight is poor, 
Upon the lips o' Philly. 



The woodbine in the dewy weet 
When evening shades in silence meet, 



Is nocht sae fragrant or sae sweet 
As is a kiss o' Willie. 



Let fortune's wheel at random rin. 
And fools may tyne, and knaves may win j 
Rly thoughts are a' bound upon ane. 
And that's my ain dear Philly. 



What's a' the joys that gowd can gie ? 
I care nae wealth a single flie ; 
The lad I love's the lad for me. 
And that's my ain dear Willie. 



O STAY, SWEET WARBLING WOOD- 
LARK. 

Tune—" Loch-Erroch side." 

O STAV, sweet warbling wood-lark, stay, 
Nor quit for me the trembling spray ! 
A hapless lover courts thy lay, 

Thy soothing fond complaining. 
Again, again that tender part. 
That I may catch thy melting art ; 
For surely that wad touch her heart, 

Wha kills me wi' disdaining. 

Say, was thy little mate unkind, 
And heard thee as the careless wind ? 
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd, 

Sic notes of woe could wauken. 
Thou tells o' never-ending care, 
O* speechless grief and dark despair ; 
For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair ! 

Or my poor heart is broken ! 



O WAT YE WHA'S IN YON TOUN. 
Tune—" I'll gang nae mair to yon toun." 

O WAT ye wha's in yon toun 

Ye see the e'ening sun upon ? 
The fairest maid's in yon toun. 

That e'ening sun is shining on. 
Now hapl)- down yon gay green thaw, 

She wanders l)y yon spreading tree ; 
How blest, ye flow'rs, that round her blaw ! 

Ye catch tho glances o' her ee. 
How blest, ye birds, that round her sing, 

And welcome in the blooming year ! 
And doubly welcome be the spring, 

The season to my Jeanie dear ! 

The sun blinks blythe on yon toun, 
Amaiig yon broomy braes sae gieen ; 

But my delight, in you toun. 

And dearest pleasure, is my Jean. 

Without my love, not a' the charms 
Of Paradise could yield me joy ; 



SONGS. 



221 



But gie me Jeanlc in my arms, 

And welcome Lapland's droarle sky. 

My cave wad be a lover's bower, 

Though raging winter rent the air ; 

And she a lovely little flower, 

That I wad tent and shelter there. 

O sweet is she in yon toun, 

The sinking sun's gane down upon ; 
Ths dearest maid's in yon toun. 

His setting beam e'er shone upon. 
If angry fate be sworn my foe. 

And suflfering I am doom'd to bear, 
I'll careless quit aught else below ; 

But spare, oh ! spare me Jeanie dear. 
For, while life's dearest blood runs warm, 

JMy thoughts frae her shall ne'er depart 
For, as most lovely is her form. 

She has the truest, kindest heart. 



O WERE I ON PARNASSUS' HILL. 

This air is Oswald's : the song I made Out 
of compliment to Mrs. Burns. 

were I on Parnassus' hill, 
Or had o' Helicon my fill ; 
That I might catch poetic skill, 
To sing how dear I love thee. 
But Nith maun be my Muse's well, 
My Muse maun be thy boimie sell ; 
On Corsincon I'll glow'r and spell. 

And write how dear I love thee. 

Then come, sweet JMuse, inspire my lay ! 
For a' the lee-iang simmer's day, 

1 coudna sing, I coudna say. 
How much, how dear, I love thee. 
I see thee dancing o'er the green, 
Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean, 
Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een — 

By heaven and earth I love thee .' 

By night, by day, a-field, at hame. 
The thoughts o' thee my breast inflame ; 
And ay I muse and sing thy name, 
I only live to love thee ! 
Tho' I were doom'd to wander on, 
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun, 
*Till my last weary sand was run ; 
'Till then, and then I love thee ! 



As dews o' simmer weeping. 
In tears the rose-bud steeping : 
O thaVs the lassie o' my heart, 

My lassie ever dearer ; 
O ihafs the queen o' womankind. 
And ne'er a ane to peer her. 

If thou shalt meet a lassie 

In grace and beauty charming, 

Thjit e'en thy chosen lassie, 

l"'rewliile thy breast sae warming, 
Had ne'er sic ])owers alarming ; 
O that's, §-c. 

If thou hadst heard her talking, 
And thy attentions plighted, 

That ilka body talking. 

But her by thee is slighted ; 
And if thou art delighted ; 
O that's, 8fc. 

If thou hast met this fair one, 
When frae her thou hast par(^ ; 

If every other fair one 

But her, thou hast deserted. 
And thou art broken-hearted ; 
O that's, §-c. 



OUT OVER THE FORTH ; 
THE NORTIL 



LOOK TO 



O WHA IS SHE THAT LOES ME. 

Tune—" Morag." 

O WHA is she that loes me, 

And has my heart a-keeping ? 
O sweet is she that loes me. 



Out over the Foith I look to the north. 

But what is the north and its Highlands to me ? 

The south nor the east gie ease to my breast, 
The far foreign land, or the wild rolling sea. 

But I look to the west, when I gae to rest. 
That happy my dreams and my slumbers may 
be ; 

I^'or far in the west lives he I lo'e best. 
The lad that is dear to my babie and me. 



PEGGY ALISON. 

Ilk care and fear, when thou art near, 

I ever mair defy them ; 
Young kings upon their hansel throne 
Are no sae blest as I am ! 
Til kiss thee yet, yet, 

An' Til kiss thee o'er again, 
An' Til kiss thee yet, yet. 
My bonnie Peggy Alison. 

When in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, 
I clasp my countless treasure, 

I seek nae mair o' Heaven to share, 

Than sic a moment's pleasure ! 

Til kiss, 8fc. ^ 



222 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And by thy een, sae bonnie blue, 
I swear I'm thine for ever ; 

And on thy hps I seal my vow. 

And break it shall I never ! 

Fll kiss, &^'c. 



POWERS CELESTIAL. 

Powers celestial, whose protection 

Ever guards the virtuous fair,. 
Wliile in distant climes I wander, 

Let my INIaiy be your care : 
Let her form sae fair and faultless. 

Fair and faultless as your own ; 
Let my JMary's kindred spirit, 

Draw your choicest influence down. 
Make the gales you waft around her, 

Soft and peaceful as her breast ; 
Breathing in the lireeze that fans her. 

Sooth her bosom into rest : 
Guardian angels, O protect her, 

When in distant lands I roam ; 
To realms unknown while fate exiles me, 

Make her bosom still my home. * 



PHILLIS THE FAIR. 

Tune—" Robin Adair." 

While larks with little wing 

Fanned the pure air, 
Tasting the breathing spring, 

Forth I did fare ; 
Gay the sun's golden eye 
Peeped o'er the mountains high 
Such thy morn ! did I cry, 

Phillis the fair. 

In each bird's careless song 

Glad I did share, 
While yon wild flowers among. 

Chance led me there : 
Sweet to the opening day. 
Rosebuds bent the dewy spray ; 
Such thy bloom ! did I say, 

Phillis the fair. 

Down in a shady walk. 

Doves cooing were ; 
I marked the cruel hawk 

Caught in a snare ; 
So kind may fortune be ! 
Such make his destiny, 
He who would injure thee, 

Phillis the fair ! 



PUIRTITH CAULD. 

Tune—" I had a horse." 

O, PUIRTITH cauld, and restless love, 

Ye wreck my peace between ye ; 
Yet puirtith a' I could forgie. 
An 'twere na for my Jeanie. 

O, why should fate sic pleasure have, 

LifVs dearest bajids untwining ? 
Or rrhy sae srveet afloicer as loi-e 
Depend on Fortune's shining ? 

This world's wealth when I think on, 

Its pride, and a' the lave o't ; 
Fie, fie on silly coward man, 

That he should be the slave o't. 

O, why should fate, 8fc. 

Her een, sae bonnie blue, betray 

How she repays my passion ; 
But prudence is her owerword aye. 

She talks of rank and fashion. 

O, why should fate, Sfc. 

O, wha can prudence think upon 

And sic a lassie by him ? 
O, wha can prudence think upon, 

And sae in love as I am ? 

O, why shoidd fate, 8fc. 

How blest the humble cottar's lot ! 

He woos his simple dearie ; 
The sillie bogles, wealth and state, 

Can never make them eerie. 

O, tvhy should fate, &-c. 



* Probably written on Highland Mary, 
of the Poet's departure for the West Indies. 



RATTLIN, ROARIN WILLIE. 

The last stanza of this song is mine ; it was 
composed out of compliment to one of the wor- 
thiest fellows in the world, William Dunbar, 
Esq. Writer to the signet, Edinburgh, and Co- 
lonel of the Crochallan corps, a club of wits 
who took that title at the time of raising the 
fencible regiments. 

O RATTLIN, roarln Willie, 

O he held to the fair. 
An' for to' sell his fiddle. 

And buy some ither ware ; 
But parting wi' his fiddle, 

The saut tear blint his ee ; 
And rattlin roarin Willie, 

Ye're welcome hame to me. 

O Willie, come sell your fiddle, 

O sell your fiddle sae fine ; 
O willie come sell your fiddle, 

And buy a pint o' wine. 
If I should sell my fiddle, 

The warl' wou'd think I was mad, 
For many a rantin day "' " ' ■ 

JMv fiddle and I hae had ! ' ' ' ' ' 



SONGS. 



223 



RAVING WINDS AROUND HER 
BLOWING. 

I coMrosED these verses on Miss Isabella 
M'Leod of Raza, alhuiiiiu; to lior feelings on the 
death of her sister, and the still more melancholy 
death of her sister's husband, the late Earl of 
Loudon. 

Tune-*" M'Grigor of Roro's Lament" 

Raving winds around her blowing, 
Yellow leaves the woodlands strewing, 
By a river hoarsely roaring, 
Isabella stray'd deploring. 
Farewell hours, that late did measure 
Sunshine days of joy and pleasure ; 
Hail ! thou gloomy night of sorrow. 
Cheerless night that knows no morrow ! 

O'er the Past too fondly pondering, 
On the hopeless Future wandering ; 
Chilly grief my life-blood freezes. 
Fell despair my fancy seizes. 
Life, thou soul of every blessing, 
Load to misery most distressing ; 
Gladly how would I resign thee. 
And to dark oblivion join thee ! 



SAW YE OUGHT O' CAPTAIN GROSE. 
Tune — " Sir John Malcolm," 

Ken ye ought o' Captain Grose ? 

Igo and ago. 
If he's among his friends or foes ? 

Iram, coram, dago. 

Is he South, or is he North ? 

Igo, and ago, 
Or drowned in the river Forth ? 

Iram, coram, dago. 

Is he slain by Highland bodies ' 

Igo, and ago, 
And eaten like a wether-haggis ? 

Iram, coram, dago. 

Is he to Abram's bosom gane ? 

Igo, and ago, 
Or haudiu' Sarah by the wame ? 

Iram, coram, dago. 

Where'er he be, the Lord be near him ; 

Igo, and ago. 
As for the deil he daur na steer him, 

Iram, coram, dago. 

But please transmit th' inclosed letter, 

Igo, and ago, 
Which will oblige your humble debtor, 

Lam, coram, dago. 



So may you have auld staues in store, 

Igo, and ago, 
The very stanes that Adam bore, 

Iram, coram, dago. 

So may ye get in glad possession, 

Igo, and ago. 
The coins o' Satan's coronation ! 

Iram, coram, dago. 



SCROGGAM. 

TuEKE waa a wife wonned in Cockpen, 

Scroggam ; 
She brewed gude ale for gentlemen : 

Sing, auld Cowl, lay ye down by me ; 

Scroggam, my dearie, Ruffum. 

The gude wife's dochter fell in a fever, 

Scroggam ; 
The priest o' the parish fell in another : 

Sing, auld Cowl, lay ye down by me ; 

Scroggam, my dearie, Ruffum. 

They laid the twa in the bed thegither, 

Scroggam, 
That the heat o' the tane might cool the tother 

Sing, auld Cowl, lay ye down by me ; 

Scroggam, my dearie, Ruffum. 



SHE'S FAIR AND FAUSE. 

Tune — " She's fair and fause." 

She's fair and fause that causes my smart, 

I loo'd her mickle and lang ; 
She's broken her vow, she's broken my heart, 

And 1 may e'en gae hang. 
A cuif cam in wi' rowth o' gear. 
And I hae tint my dearest dear ; 
But woman is but warld's gear, 

Sae let the bonuie lass gang. 

Whae'er ye be that woman love. 

To this be never blind, 
Nae ferlie 'tis though fickle she prove j 

A woman has't by kind : 
O woman, lovely woman fair ! 
An angel's form's faun to tliy share, 
'Twad been ower mickle to hae gi'eu thee mair 

I mean an angel mind. 



SHE SAYS SHE LO'ES .AH^ BEST 
OF A'. 

Tunc—" Oiiagli's Wa(er-l"all." 

Sak llaxon were her ringlets. 
Her eyebrows of a darker hue, 



224 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Bevvitchingly o'er-arching 

Twa laughing een o' bonnie blue. 
Her smiling sae wyling, 

Wad make a wretch forget his woe ; 
What pleasure, what treasure, 

Unto these rosy lips to grow ; 
Such was my Chloris' bonnie face, 

When first her bonnie face I saw, 
And aye my Chloris' dearest charm, 

She says she lo'es me best of a'. 

Like harmony her motion : 

Her pretty ancle is a spy 
Betraying fair proportion, 

Wad make a saint forget the sky. 
Sae warming, sae charming. 

Her faultless form and graceful air ; 
Ilk feature — auld Nature 

Declar'd that she could do nae mair : 
Hers are the willing chains o' love. 

By conquering beauty's sovereign law ; 
And aye my Chloris' dearest charm, 

She says she lo'es me best of a*. 

Lot others love the city, 

And gaudy show at sunny noon ; 
Gie me the lonely valley. 

The dewy eve, aud rising moon. 
Fair beaming aud streaming. 

Her silver light the boughs amang j 
While falling, recalling, 

The amorous thrush concludes his sang 
There, dearest Chloris, wilt thou rove 

By wimpliug burn and leafy shaw, 
And hear my vows o' truth and love, 

And say thou lo'es me best of a*. 



SIC A WIFE AS WILLIE HAD. 
Tuiie — " Tibby Fowler." 

Willie Wastlk dwalt on Tweed, 

The place they ca'd it Linkumdoddie. 
Willie was a wabster gude, 

Could stown a clew wi' onie bodie. 
He had a wife was dour and din, 

O, Tinkler Madgie was her mother : 
Sic a wife as Willie had, 

I wadna gie a button for her ! 

She has an ee, she has but ane. 

The cat has twa the very colour ; 
Twa rustic teeth, forbye a stump, 

A clapper tongue wad deave a miller ; 
A whiskin' beard about her mou' ; 

Her nose and chin they threaten ither : 
Sic a wife as Willie had, 

I wadna gie a button for her ! 

She's how-hough'd, she's hein-shina'd, 
Ae limpin' leg a hand-bread shorter; 

She's twisted richt, she's twisted left. 
To balance fair ia ilka quarter : 



She has a hump upon her breast, 

The twin o' that upon her shouther : 

Sic a wife as Willie had, 

I wadna gie a button for her ! 

Auld baudrons* by the ingle sits. 

And wi' her loof her face a-washin' ; 
But Willie's wife is nae sae trig, 

She dichts her grunyief wi' a hushion. \ 
Her walie neeves, || like midden creels ; 

Her face wad fyle the Logan Water : 
Sic a wife as Willie had, 

1 wadna gie a button for her ! 



STEER HER UP AND HAUD HER 
GAUN. 

Tune — " Steer her up." 

O STSER her up and hand her gaua ; 

Her mother's at the mill, jo ; 
And gin she winna tak a man, 

E'en let her tak her will, jo. 

First shore her wi' a kindly kiss. 

And ca' another gill, jo ; 
And gin she tak the thing amiss. 

E'en let her flyte her fill, jo. 

O steer her up, and be na blate ; 

And gin she tak it ill, jo. 
Then lea' the lassie to her fate, 

And time nae langer spill, jo. 

Ne'er break your heart for ae rebut. 

But think upon it still, jo, 
That gin the lassie winna do't, 

Ye'U find another will, jo. 



SWEET FA'S THE EVE ON CRAIGIE. 
BURN. 

Sweet fa's the eve on Craigie-burn, 

And blythe awakes the morrow, 
But a' the pride o' spring's return 

Can yield me nocht but sorrow. 

I see the flowers and spreading trees, 

I hear the wild birds singing ; 
But what a weary wight can please, 

And care his bosom wringing ? 

Fain, fain would I my griefs impart. 

Yet dare na for your anger ; 
But secret love will break my heart. 

If I conceal it langer. 

If thou refuse to pity me. 
If thou shalt love anither. 



The cat. t Mouth. % Cushion. || Fists. 



SONGS. 



225 



When yon green leaves fade frae the tree, 
Around my grave they'll wither. * 



TAJNI GLEN. 

Mv heart is a-breaking, dear tittie. 
Some counsel unto me come len', 

To anger them a* is a pity, 

But what will I do wi' Tarn Glen ? 

I'm thinking, wi' sic a braw fellow, 
In poortith I might mak a fen : 

What care I in riches to wallow, 
If I maunua marry Tarn Glen. 

There's Lowrie the laird o' Dumeller, 

" Gude day to you, brute," he comes ben 

He brags and he blaws o' his siller. 

But when will he dance like Tarn Glen ? 

My miimie does constantly deave me, 
And bids me beware o' young men ; 

They flatter, she says, to deceive me, 
But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen ? 

My daddie says, gin I'll forsake him, 
He'll gie me gude huuder marks ten : 

But, if it's ordain'd I maun tak him, 
O wha will I get like Tam Glen ? 

Yestreen at the Valentine's dealing, 
My heart to my mou gied a sten ; 

For thrice I drew ane without faihng, 
And thrice it was written Tam Glen. 

The last Hallowe'en I was waukin 
My droukit sark-sleeve, as ye ken ; 

His Ukeness cam up the house staukin. 
And the very grey breeks o' Tam Glen ! 

Come counsel, dear tittie, don't tarry j 
I'll gie you my bonnie black hen, 

Gin ye will advise me to marry 
The lad I lo'e dearly, Tam Glen. 



THE AULD MAN. 

But lately seen in gladsome green 

The woods rejoiced the day. 
Thro' gentle showers the laughing flowers 

In double pride were gay : 
But now our joys are fled, 

On winter blasts awa ! 
Yet maiden May, in rich array, 

Again shall bring them a'. 



* Cragie-buni wood is situated on the banks of the 
river Moffat, ;uid about three miles distant from the 
village of that name, celcbratetl for its medicinal wa- 
ters. The woods of Cragitsburn, aiid of Dumcrief, 
were at one time favourite liaunts of our poet. It was 
there he met the " Lassie wi' the l^nt-white locks," 
and tiiat he conceived several of his beautiful lyrics. 



But my white pow, nae kindly thowe 

Shall melt the snaws of age ; 
My trunk of cild, but buss or beild, 

Sinks in time's wintry rage. 
Oh, age has weary days. 

And nights o' sleepless pain I 
Thou golden time o' youthfu' prime. 

Why comest thou not again ! 



THE BANKS O' DOON. 

Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 

How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ; 
How can ye chant ye little birds, 

And I sae weary fu' o' care ! 
Thou'U break my heart thou warbling bird, 

That wantons thro' the flowering thorn : 
Thou minds me o' departed joys. 

Departed never to return. 

Oft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon, 

To see the rose and woodbine twine ; 
And ilka bird sang o' its luve, 

And, fondly, sae did 1 o' mine. 
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 

Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree ; 
And my fause lover stole my rose. 

But ah ! he left the thorn wi' me. 



THE BANKS BY CASTLE- GORDON. 

Tune — " Morag." 

Streams that glide in orient plains 
Never bound by winter's chains ; 
Glowing here on golden sands. 
There commix'd with foulest stains 
From tyranny's empurpled bands : 
These, their richly gleaming waves, 
I leave to tyrants and their slaves ; 
Give me the stream that sweetly laves 
The banks by Castle- Gordon. 

Spicy fojests ever gay. 
Shading from the burning ray 
Hapless wretches sold to toil. 
Or the ruthless native's way. 
Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil 
Woods that ever verdant wave, 
I leave the tyrant and the slave. 
Give me the groves that lofty brave 
The storms, by Castle -Gordon. 

Wildly here, without control. 
Nature reigns and rules the whole ; 
In that sober pensive mood, 
Dearest to the feeling soul, 
She plants the forest, pours the flood, 
Life's poor day I'll musing rave, 



19 



226 



BQliNS' WORKS. 



And find at night a sliLlteriog cave, 
Where waters flow and wihl woods wave, 
By bonnie Castle- Gordon. 



And art thou come, and art tliou true 
O welcome dear to love and me ! 

And let us all our vows renew, 
Along the flowery banks of Cree. 



THE BANKS OF THE DEVON. 

Tune — " Rhannerach dhon na chri." 

These verses were composed on a charming 
girl, a Miss Charlotte Hamilton, who is now 
married to James M'Kitrick Adair, Esq. phy 
sician. She is sister to my worthy friend, Ga- 
vin Hamilton, of Mauchline ; and was born on 
the banks of Ayr, but was, at the time I wrote 
these lines, residing at Herveyston, in Clack- 
mannanshire, on the romantic banks of the little 
river Devon. — I first heard the air from a lady 
in Inverness, and got the notes taken down for 
this work. 

How pleasant the banks of the nlear winding 
Devon, 
With green spreading bushes and flow'rs 
blooming fair ! 
But the bonniest flow'r on the banks of the De- 
von, 
Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the 
Ayr : 
Wild be the sun on this sweet-blushing flow'r, 

In the gay rosy morn as it bathes in the dew ; 
And gentle the fall of the soft vernal show'r, 
That steals on the evening each leaf to renew ! 

O spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes, 

With chill, hoary-wing as ye usher the dawn ! 
And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizest. 

The verdure and pride of the garden or lawn ! 
Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies, ^ 

And England triumphant display her proud 
rose ; 
A fairer than either adorns the green vallies, 

Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering 
flows. 



THE BARD'S SONG. 

THE bard's SOKG IN " THE JOLLY BEGGARS.' 

Tune—" Jolly mortals, fill your glasses." 

See the smoking bowl before us, 
Mark our jovial ragged ring ! 
Round and round take up the chorus, 
And in raptures let us sing — 

A Jig for those hy law protected^ 

Liberty's a glorious feast ! 
Courts for cowards tvere erected. 
Churches built to please the priest. 

What is title what is treasure, 

What is reputation's care ? 
If we lead a life of pleasure, 

'Tis no matter how or where. 
A fig for those, §-c. 

Life is all a variorum, 

We regard not how it goes ; 
Let them cant about decorum. 

Who have characters to lose. 
A fig for those, 8fc. 

Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets ! 

Here's to all our wandering train ! 
Here's our ragged brats and callets ! 

One and all cry out. Amen ! 
A fig for those, ^c. 



THE BANKS OF CREE. 

Tune — " The banks of Cree." 

Here is the glen, and here the bower, 
All underneath the birchen shade; 

The village bell has toll'd the hour, 
O, what can stay my lovely maid ? 

Tis not JNIaria's whispering call, 

Tis but the balmy breathing gale, 
Mixt with some warbler's dying fall. 
The dewy star of eve to hail. 

It is Maria's voice I hear ! 

So calls the woodlark to the grove, 
His little faithful mate to cheer. 

At oucc 'tis music — and 'tis love. 



THE BATTLE OF SHERIFF-MUIR, 

BETWEEN THE DUKE OF ARGYLE AND THE 
EARL OF MAR. 

" O CAM ye here the fight to shun, 
Or herd the sheep wi' me, man ? 
Or were ye at the Sherra-rauir, 

And did the battle see, man ?" 
I saw the battle sair and teugh, 
And reekin-red ran monie a sheugh, 
My heart for fear gae sough for sough, 
To hear the thuds, and see the cluds 
O' clans frae woods, in tartan duds, 
Wha glaum' d at kingdoms three, man. 

The red- coat lads wi' black cockades. 
To meet them were na slaw, man ; 

They rush'd and push'd, and bluid outgusli'd> 
And moiiy a bouk did fa', man : 

The great Argyle led on his files, 

I wat they glanced twenty miles ! 



SONGS. 



227 



Tliey liack'd and hash'd, while broadswords 

clash'd, 
And thro' they dash'd, and hcwM and smash'd, 
Till foy men died awa, man. 

But had you seen the philibegs, 

And skyrin tartan trews, man, 
When in the teeth they dar'd our whigs, 

And covenant true blues, man ; 
In lines extended lang and large. 
When bayonets opposed the targe, 
And thousands hastened to the charge, 
Wi' highland wrath they frae the sheath, 
Drew blades o' death, till out o' breath, 

They fled like frighted doos, man. 

" O how deil Tarn can that be true ? 

The chase gaed frae the north, man ; 
I saw myself, they did pursue 

The horsemen back to Forth, man ; 
And at Dumblane, in my ain sight. 
They took the biig wi' a' their might, 
And straught to Stirling winged their flight ; 
But, cursed lot ! the gates were shut; 
And mony a hunted poor red-coat 

For fear amaist did swarf, man." 

My sister Kate came up the gate 

Wi' crowdie unto me, man : 
She swoor she saw some rebels run, 

Frae Perth unto Dundee, man ; 
Their left-hand general had nae skill, 
The Angus lads had nae good will 
That day their neebor's blood to spill ; 
For fear by foes, that they should lose 
Their cogs o' brose ; all crying woes, 

And so it goes, you see, man. 

They've lost some gallant gentlemen, 
Araang the Highland clans, man ; 

I fear my Lord Panmure is slain, 
Or fallen in whiggish hands, man. 

Now wad ye sing this double fight, 

Some fell for wrang, and some for right ; 

But mony bade the world gude-night ; 

Then ye may tell, how pell and mell, 

By red claymores, and muskets, knell, 

Wi' dying yell, the tories fell, 

And whigs to hell did flee, man.* 



THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY. 

I co:mposed these stanzas standing under the 
Falls of Aberfeldy, at or near JNIoness. 

Tune—" The Birks of Abergeldy." 

JBonnie lassie, will ye go, will ye go, will ye go, 
JBonnie lassie, will ye go, to the Hirks of Aber- 
feldy ? 



* This was ivrittcn about the time our bard made 
Ins tour to the Highlands, 1787. 



Now simmer blinks on flowery braes. 

And o'er the crystal streamlets plays ; 

Come, let us spend the lichtsome daya 

In the Birks of Aberfeldy. 

Bonnie lassie, Sfc. 

While o'er their head the hazels hiug, 

The little birdies blythely sing, 

Or lichtly flit on wanton wing, 

In the Birks of Aberfeldy. 

JBonnie lassie. Sec. 

The braes ascend like lofty wa's, 
The foamin' stream deep-roaring fa'a, 
O'erhung A\i' fragrant spreadin' shaws, 
The ]5irks of Aberfeldy. 
JBonnie lassie, S^c. 

The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flow'rs, 
White ower the lin the burnie pours, 
And, risin', weets wi' mioty show'rs 
The Birks of Aberfeldy. 
JBonnie lassie, Sfc. 

Let fortune's gifts at random flee, 
They ne'er shall draw a wish frae me, 
Supremely bless'd wi' love and thee, 
In the Birks of Aberfeldy.* 
Bonnie lassie, 8fc. 



THE BIG-BELLIED BOTTLE. 

Tune—" Prepare, my dear Brethren, to the Tavern 
lei's fly," 

No churchman am I, for to rail and to write ; 
No statesman or soldier, to plot or to fight ; 
No sly man of business, contriving a snare ; 
For a big-bellied bottle's the whole of my care. 

The peer I don't envy — I give him his bow ; 
I scorn not the peasant, though ever so low ; 
But a club of good follows, like those that are 

here, 
And a bottle like this, are my glory and care. 

Here passes the squire on his brother — his 

horse ; 
There centum-pcr-centum, the cit with his 

purse ; 
But see you ' the Crown,' how it waves in the 

air ! 
There a big-bellied bottle still eases my care. 



* The chorus is borrowed from an old simple bal- 
lad, called " The Birks of Abergeldy ;" of which the 
following is a fragment. 

Bonnie lassie, will yo go. 
Will ye go, will ye go, 
Bonnie lassie, will ye go 
To the birks o' Abergeldie ? 
Vc shall get a gown o' silk, 
A gown o' silk, a gown o' silk. 
Ye shall get a gown o' silk, 
And coat of calliinankie. 



228 



BURNS' WORKS. 



The wife of my bosom, alas ! she did die ; 
For sweet consolation to church I did fly ; 
I found that old Solomon proved it fair, 
That a big-bellied bottle's a cure for all care. 

I once was persuaded a venture to make ; 
A letter inform'd me that all was to wreck ; 
But the pursy old landlord just waddled up 

stairs, 
With a glorious bottle, that ended my cares. 

'* Life's cares they are comforts," * a maxim 

laid down 
By the bard, what d'ye call him, that wore the 

black gown ; 
And faith I agree with th' old prig to a hair, 
For a big-bellied bottle's a heaven of care. 

STAKZA ADDED IN A MASON LODGE. 

Then fill up a bumper, and make it o'erflow. 
And honours masonic prepare for to throw ; 
May every true brother of the compass and 

square 
Have a big-bellied bottle when harass'd with 

care. 



THE BLUE-EYED LASSIE. 

I GAED a waefu' gate yestreen, 

A gate, I fear, I'll dearly rue ; 
I gat my death frae twa sweet een, 

'Twa lovely een o' bonnie blue. 
'Twas not her golden ringlets bright ; 

Her lips like roses, wat wi' dew, 
Her heaving bosom, lily-white — 

It was her e'en sae bonnie blue. 

She talk'd, she smiled, my heart she wyl'd, 

She charm'd my soul I wist na how ; 
And aye the stound, the deadly wound, 

Cam frae her een sae bonnie blue. 
But spare to speak, and spare to speed ; 

She'll aiblins listen to my vow : 
Should she refuse, I'll lay my dead 

To her twa een sae bonnie blue.f 



THE BONNIE WEE THING. 

Composed on my little idol, " The charm- 
ing, lovely Davies." 

Sonnie. vre thing, cannie wee thing, 
Lovely wee thing teas thou mine ; 



* Young's Night Thoughts. 

f The heroine of this song was Miss .T. of l.ochma- 
ben. This lady, now Mrs. R. after residing some time 
in Liverpool, is settled with her liusband in New York, 
North America. 



/ 7vnd wear thee in my bosom, 
Lest my jewel L shotild tine. 

Wishfully I look and languish, 
In that bonnie face of thine ; 

And my heart it stounds wi' anguish, 

Lest my wee thing be na mine. 

Bonnie wee thing, §-c. 

Wit, and grace, and love, and beaut)', 

In ae constellation shine ; 
To adore thee is my dutv. 

Goddess o' this soul o' mine ! 
JBonnie wee thing, 8fc. 



THE BRAES O' BALLOCHMYLE. 

The Catrine woods were yellow seen, 

The flowers decayed on Catrine lee, * 
Nae lav'rock sang on hillock green, 

But nature sicken'd on the ee. 
Thro' faded groves Maria sang, 

Hersel' in beauty's bloom the while, 
And aye the wild wood echoes rang, 

Fareweel the braes o' Ballochrayle. 

Low in your wintry beds, ye flowers, 

Again ye'Il flourish fresh and fair ; 
Ye birdies dumb, in withering bowers, 

Again ye'll charm the vocal air. 
But here, alas ! for me nae mair, 

Shall birdie charm, or floweret smile ; 
Fareweel the bonnie banks of Ayr, 

Fareweel, fareweel ! sweet Ballochmyle ! 



THE CARL OF KELLYBURN BRAES. 

These words are mine ; I composed them 
from the old traditionary verses. 

There lived a carl on Kellyburn braes, 

(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 

And he had a wife was the plague o' his days ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd and the rue is 
in prime. 

Ae day as the carl gaed up the lang glen, 
( Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 

He met wi' the devil ; says, " How do yow fen?" 
And the thyme it is wither'd and the rue is 
in prime. 

*' I've got a bad wife, Sir ; that's a' my com- 
plaint ; 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 



» Catrine, in Ayrshire, the seat of Dugald Stewart, 
Esq. Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University 
of Edinlnirgh. Ballochmyle, formerly the seat of Sir 
John Whitefoord, now of Alexander, Esq. (ISOO. 



SONGS. 



229 



For, saving your prosence, to licr yo're a saint ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd and the rue is 
in prime." 

" It's neither your stot nor your staig I shall 

crave, 

(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 

But gie me your wife, man, for her I must have, 

And the thyme it is wither'd and the rue is 

in prime." 

*' O welcome, most kindly," the blythe carl said, 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 

But if ye can match hei, ye*re war nor ye're ca'd, 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and the rue is 
in prime." 

The devil has got the auld wife on his back ; 

(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 
And, like a poor pedlar, he's carried his pack ; 

And the thyme it is wither'd, and the rue is 
in prime. 

He's carried her hame to his ain hallan-door ; 

(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 
Syne hade her gae in, for a bitch and a whore, 

yVnd the thyme it is wither'd, and the '•ue is 
iu prime. 

Then straight he makes fifty, the pick o' his 
band, 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 
Turn out on her gaurd in the clap of a hand ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and the rue is 
prime. 

The carlin gaed thro' them like ony wude bear, 

(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 

Whae'er she gat hands on came near her nae 

mair ; 

And the thyme it is wither'd, and the rue is 

in prime. 

** A reekit wee devil looks over the wa' ; 

(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 
O, help, nnaster, help, or she'll ruin us a', 

And the thyme it is wither'd, and the rue is 
in prime." 

The devil he swore by the edge o' his knife, 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 

He pitied the man that was tied to a wife ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and the rue is 
in prime. 

The devil he swore by the kirk and the bell, 

(Hey, and the rue gi-ows bonnie wi' thyme) 
He was not in wedlock, thank heaven, but iu 
hell; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and the rue is 
in prime. 

Then Satan h;us travelled again wi' his pack ; 
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 



And to hera\dd husband he's carried her back ; 
And the thyme it is wither'd, and the rue is 
in prime. 

" I hae been a devil the feck o' ray life ; 

(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme) 
But ne'er was in hell, till I met wi' a wife ; 

And the thyme it is wither'd, and the rue is 
in prime. 



THE CHEVALIER'S LAMENT. 

Tune—*' Captain O' Kaine." 

The small birds rejoice in the green leaves re- 
turning ; 
The murmuring streamlet runs clear through 
the vale ; 
The hawthorn trees blow in the dews of the 
morning ; 
And wild scattered cowslips bedeck the green 
dale. 
But what can give pleasure, or what can seem 

fair, 
When the lingerln' moments are numbered by 
care ? 
No flowers gaily springing. 
Or birds sweetly singing, 
Can sooth the sad bosom of joyless despair. 

The deed that I dared, could it merit their ma- 
lice — 
A king and a father to place on his throne ! 
His right are these hills, and his right are these 
valleys, 
V/here the wild beasts find shelter, but I can 
find none. 
But 'tis not my sufierings, thus wretched, for- 
lorn ; 
Rly brave gallant friends, 'tis your ruin I mourn , 
Your deeds proved so loyal 
In hot bloody trial ; 
Alas ! can I make it no better return ! 



THE DAY RETURNS, ]\IY BOSOM 
BURNS. 

Tune—" Seventli of November." 

Thk day returns, my bosom burns, 

The blissful day we twa did meet, 
Tho' winter wild in tempest toil'd. 

Ne'er summer sun was half sae sweet ; * 
Than a' the pride that loads the tide, 

And crosses o'er the sultry line ; 
Than kingly robes, than crowns and globes. 

Heaven gave me more, it made thee mine. 

\Vliile day and ni};ht can bring delight, 
Or nature ought of pleasure give ! 



230 



BURNS' WORKS. 



MTiile joys above, my miad can move, 
For thee, and thee alone, I live ! 

When that grim foe of life below, 
Comes in between to make us part ; 

The iron hand that breaks our band, 
It breaks my bliss — it breaks my heart. 



THE DEATH SONG. 

Scene— A Field of Battle.— Time of the Day— 
Evening. — The Wounded and Dying of the Victo- 
rious Army are supposed to join in the following 
Song : 

Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, 
and ye skies, 
Now gay with the bright setting sun ; 
Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender 
ties, 
Our race of existence is run ! 

Thou grim King of Terrors, thou life's gloomy 
foe, 
Go, frighten the coward and slave ; 
Go teach them to tremble, fell tyrant ! but 
know. 
No terrors hast thou to the brave. 

Thou strikest the dull peasant ; he sinks in the 
dark. 

Nor saves even the wreck of a name ; 
Thou strikest the young hero — a glorious mark ! 

He dills in the blaze of his fame ! 

In the proud field of honour — our swords in our 
hands, 

Our king and our country to save — 
While victory shines on life's last ebbing sands, 

O ! who would not die with the brave ! 



THE DEIL'S AWA WI' 
MAN. 



THE EXCISE- 



The deil cam fiddling through the toun, 

And danced awa wi' the exciseman ; 
And ilka auld wife cried, Auld Mahoun, 
I wish you luck o' the prize, man. 
The deil's mca, the cleiVs mca. 

The deiVs awa wV the exciseman ; 
lies danced awa, he's danced awa, 
He's danced awa wV the exciseman ! 

We' 4 mak our maut, we'll brew our drink, 
We'll laugh, sing, and rejoice, man ; 

And mony braw thanks to the meikle black deil, 
That danced awa wi' the exciseman I 
The deil's aica, Sfc. 

Tliere's threesome reels, there's foursome rejls, 
There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man ; 



But the ae best dance e'er cam to the heels, 
Was, The deil's awa wi' the excsieman. 
ITie deiVs awa^ ^c. 



THE ELECTION. 

Tunc—" Fy, let us a' to the bridal." 

Fy, let ns a' to Kirkcudbright, 
For there will he bickering there. 

For Murray's light horse are to muster , 
And oh, how the heroes will swear ! 

And there will be IVIurray commander, 
And Gordon the batttle to win : 

Like brithers they'll stand by each other, 
Sae knit in alliance and sin. 
Fy, let us a', &^c. 

And there will be black-nebbed Johnnie, 
The tongue of the trump to them a' ; 

If he get na hell for his haddin*, 
The deil gets nae justice ava ! 
Fy, let us a', ^c. 

And there will be Templeton's birkie, 
A boy no sae black at the bane ; 

But, as to his fine Nabob fortune, 
We'll e'en let the subject alane. 
Fy, let us a', 8fc. 

And there will be Wigton's new sheriff: 
Dame Justice fu' brawly has sped ; 

She's gotten the heart of a B by. 

But what has become of the head ? 
Fy, let us a', Sfc. 

And there will be Cardoness' squire, 

So mighty in Cardoness' eyes ; 
A wight that will weather damnation. 

For the devil the prey will despise. 
Fy, let us a', 8j-c. 

And there will be Douglasses doughty. 
New christening towns far and near ; 

Abjuring their democrat doings, 
By kissing the doup of a peer 
Fy, let us a', §r. 

And there will be Kenmure sae generous, 
Whose honour is proof 'gainst the storm ; 

To save them frae stark reprobation. 
He lent them his name to the firm. 
Fy, let us a', §t. 

But we winna mention Redcastle ; 

The body, e'en let him escape : 
He'd venture the gallows for siller, 

An 'twerena the cost o' the rape. 
Fy, let us a', §-c. 

And there is our King's Lord Lieutenant, 
Sae famed for his grateful return ? 



SONGS. 



231 



The billie is getting lils questions, 
To say in St. Stephen's the mom. 
Fy, let lis a, Sfc. 

And there will be lads of the gospel, 
Muiihead, wha's as gude as he's true ; 

And there will be Buittle's apostle, 

Wha's mair o' the black than the blue. 
Fi/, let us a, Sfc. 

And there will be folk frae St. Mary's, * 
A house o' great merit and note : 

The deil ane but honours thein highly — 
The deil ane will gie them his vote. 
Fi/, let us a', 8fc. 

And there will be wealthy young Richard 
Dame Fortune should hing by the neck : 

But for prodigal thriftless bestowing, 
His merit had won him respect. 
Fi/f let us a', 8fc. 

And there will be rich brither Nabobs ; 

Though Nabobs, yet men o' the first : 
And there will be Colliston's whiskers, 

And Quintin, o' lads not the warst. 
Fy, let us a\ 8fc. 

And there will be Stamp-office Johnnie — 
Tak tent how you purchase a dram ; 

And there will be gay Cassencarry ; 
And there will be gleg Colonel Tam. 
Fy, let us a\ §"c. 

And there will be trusty KIrrochtrie, 
Whase honour is ever his sa' ^ 

If the virtues were packed in a parcel. 
His worth might be sample for a'. 
Fy, let us a', Sfc. 

And can we forget the auld IMajor, 
Wha'll ne'er be forgot in the Greys ? 

Our flattery we'll keep for some other j 
Him only it's justice to praise. 
Fy, let us a', §*e. 

And there will be maiden Kilkerran, 
And also Barskimmiug's gude wight ; 

And there w/ll be roaring Birtwhistle, 
Wha luckily roars in the right. 
Fy, let us a', Sfc. 

Aud there, n-ae t\\e Niddisdale border, 
We'll mingle the IMaxwells in droves, 

Teuch Jockie, stanch Geordie, and Willie, 

That grants for tne fishes and loves. 

Fvy let us a\ §*c. 

And there will be Logan ]M'D 1 ; 

Sculduddery and he will be there ; 



And also the Scott o' Galloway, 
Sodgering, gunpowder Blair. 
Fy, let us a\ Sfc. 

Then hey ! the chaste interest o' Broughton, 
And hey for the blessings 'twill bring ! 

It may send Balmaghie to the Commons ; 

In Sodom 'twould make him a king. 

Fy, let us a', §*c. 

And hey ! for the sanctified M — r — y, 
Our land wha wi' chapels has stored ; 

He foundered his horse among harlots, 
But gied the auld mare to the Lord. 
Fy, let us a', §-c. 



* Meaning the family of the Earl of Selkirk, resi- 
dent at St. Mary's Isle, wear Kirkcudbright. 



THE GALLANT WEAVER. 

Where Cart rins rowin to the sea, 
By mony a flow'r and spreading tree, 
There lives a lad, the lad for me. 
He is a gallant weaver. 

Oh I had wooers aught or nine, 
They gied me rings and ribbons fine ; 
And I was fear'd my heart would tine, 
Aud I gied it to the weaver. 

INIy daddie sign'd my tocher-band 
To gie the lad that has the land. 
But to my heart I'll add my hand. 
And give it to the weaver. 

While birds rejoice in leafy bowers ; 
While bees delight in opening flowers ; 
While corn grows green in simmer showers, 
I'll love my gallant weaver.* 



THE GARDENER Wl' HIS PAIDLE. 

This air is the Gardeners March. The title 
of the song only is old ; the rest is mine. 

When rosy May comes in wi' flowers. 

To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers ; 

Then busy, busy are his hours, 
The gard'ner wi' his paidle. 

The crystal waters gently fa' ; 
The merry birds are lovers a' ; 
The scented breezes round him blaw. 
The gard'ner wi' his paidle. 

When purple morning starts the hare 
To steal upon her early fare ; 
Then thro' the dews he maun repair, 
The gard'ner wi' his paidle. 



Iq some cdiUons sailor is substituted for weaver. 



232 



BURNS' WORKS. 



When day expiiiog ia the west, 
The curtain draws of nature's rest 
He flies to her arms he lo'es best, 
The gard'ner wi' his paidle. 



THE GLOOMY NIGHT IS GATHER- 
ING FAST. 

Tune^" lanksofAyr." 

The gloomy night is gath'ring fast, 
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast, 
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain, 
I see it driving o'er the phiin. 
The hunter now has left the moor, 
The scatter'd coveys meet secure, 
While here I wander, prest with care, 
Along the lonely banks of Ayr. 

The autumn mourns her ripening corn, 
By early winter's ravage torn ; 
Across her placid azure !»ky 
She sees the scowling tempest fly : 
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave, 
I think upon the stormy wave. 
Where many a danger I must dare, 
Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr. 

'Tis not the surging billow^' roar, 
'Tis not that fatal, deadly shore ; 
Though death in every shape appear. 
The wretched have no more to fear : 
But round my heart the ties are bound, 
That heart transpierced with many a wound ; 
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear, 
To leave the bonnie b;' ak^ of Ayr. 

Farewell old Colla's hills and dales, 
Her heathy moors and winding vales ; 
The scene where wretched fancy roves. 
Pursuing past, unhappy loves ! 
Farewell my friends, farewell my foes, 
My peace with these, ray love with those ; 
The bursting tears my heart declare ; 
Farewell the bonnie banks of Ayr.* 



THE HEATHER WAS BLOOMING. 

Tune—-" I red you beware at the hunting." 

The heather was blooming, the meadows were 

mawn, 
Our lads gaed a hunting, ae day at the dawn. 
O'er moors and o'er mosses and mony a glen. 
At length they discovered a bonnie moor-hen. 



* Burns wrote this song, while convoying his chest 
3o far on the road from Ayrshire to Greenock, where 
lie intended to embark in a ftw days for Jamaica. He 
designed it, he says, a^ liis farewell dirge to his native 
wimtry. 



I red you beivare at the hunting, young men ; 
I red you beware at the huntiiig, young men ; 
Tak some on the wing, and some as they 

spring, 
But cannily steal on a bonnie moor-hen. 

Sweet brushing the dew from the brown heather 

bells, 
Her colours betray 'd her on yon mossy feUs ; 
Her plumage outlustred the pride o' the spring, 
And O ! as she wantoned gay on the wing. 
I red, Sfc. 

Auld Phcebus himsel, as he peep'd o'er the hill ; 

In spite at her plumage he tryed his skill ; 

He levell'd his rays where she bask'd on the 

brae — 
His rays were outshone, and but mark'd where 

she lay. 

I red, ^'c. 

They hunted the valley, they hunted the hill ; 
The best of our lads wi' the best o' their skill ; 
But still as the fairest she sat in their sight, 
Then, whirr ! she was over, a mile at a fliglit.— . 
I red, §-c. 



THE HIGHLAND LASSIE, O. 

This was a composition of mine in very early 
life, before I was known at all in the world. 

Nae gentle dames, tho' ne'er sae fair. 

Sail ever be my Muse's care ; 

Their titles a' are empty shew ; 

Gie me my Highland lassie, O. 

Within the glen sae bushy, O, 
Aboon the plain sae rashy, O, 
I set me down wV right good willy 
To sing my Highland lassie^ O. 

were yon hills and vallies mine. 
Yon palace and yon gardens fine ! 
The world then the love should know 

1 bear ray Highland lassie, O. 

Within the glen, 8fc. 

But fickle fortune fi-owns on me. 
And I maun cross the raging sea ; 
But while my crimson currents flow, 
I'll lo'e my Highland lassie, O. 
Within the glen, 8fc. 

Altho' thro' foreign climes I range, 
I know her heart will never change. 
For her bosom burns with honour's glow, 
My faithful Higldand lassie, O. 
Witlmi the glen, §c. 

For her I'll dare the billow's roar ; 
For uer I'll trace a diyluut shore ; 



tlWw 



SONGS. 



23S 



That Indiau wealth may lustre 

Around my Highland lassie, O. 

Within the glen, &fc. 

She has my heart, she has my hand. 
By secret truth and honoui's band ! 
'Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low, 
I'm thine, my Highland lassie, O. 

Faretvdl the ylen, sue hxishif, O, 
Farewell the plain, sae rashij, O, 
To other lands I now vmst </o, 
To sing my Highland lassie, O. 



THE LAD THAT'S FAR AWA. 
Tune — " O'er the hills and farawa." 

O, HOW can I he blithe and glad. 
Or how can I gang brisk and braw, 

When the bonnie lad that I lo'e best 
Is o'er the hills and fcir awa ? 

It's no the frosty winter wind, 

it's no the driving drift and snaw ; 

But aye the tear comes in my ee 
To think on him that's far awa. 

My father pat me frae his door, 

My friends they hae disown'd me a' ; 

But I hae ane will take my part, 
The bonnie lad that's far awa. 

A i)air o* gloves he gae to mc. 

And i^ilkeUjSnoods he gae me twa ; 

And I will wear them for his sake, 
The bunnie lad that's far avvo. 

The weary winter soon will pass. 

And spring will deed the birkeii shaw j 

And my sweet babie will bt; born, 
And he'll come hame that's fur awa. 



THE LASS OF BALLOCHMYLE. 
Tune—" The Lass of Balloehmyle." 

TwAs even, the dewy fields were green, 

On ilka blade the pearls hang ; 
The zephyr wanton'd round the bean, 

And bore its fragrant sweets alang : 
In ev'ry glen the mavis sang ; 

All nature list'ning seem'd the while. 
Except where greenwood echoes rang, 

Amang the braes o' Balloehmyle. 

With careless step I onward stray'd. 
My heart rejoiced in Nature's joy ; 

When, musing in a lonely glade, 
A maiden fair I chanced to spy : 

Her look was like the morning's eye, 
Her air like Nature's vernal smile ; 



The lily's hue, and rose's dye, 
Bespake the lass o' Balloehmyle- 

Fair is the morn in flowery May, 

And sweet is night in Autumn mild. 
When roving through the garden gay, 

Or wand'ring in the lonely wild ; 
But woman, Nature's darling child ! 

Theie all her charms she does compile j 
Even there her other works are foil'd, 

By the bonnie lass o' Baljjchmylc. 

Oh, had she been a country maid, 

And I the happy countiy swain. 
Though shelter'd in the lowest shed 

That ever rose on Scotland's j)lain ! 
Through weary winter's wind and rain. 

With joy, with rapture, I would toil ; 
And nightly to ray bosom strain 

The bonnie lass o' Balloehmyle. 

Then pride might climb the slipp'ry steep, 

Where fame and honours lefty shine ; 
And thirst of gold might tempt the deep, 

Or downward dig the Indian mine. 
Give me the cot below the pine. 

To tend the flocks, or till the soil. 
And ev*ry day have joys divine, 

Wi' the bonnie lass o' Balloehmyle.* 



THE LASS THAT MADE THE BED 
TO ME.f 

When Januar winds were blawiu' cauld, 

Unto the north I bent my way, 
The mirksome nicht djd «po enfauld, 

I kend na where to lot'ge till day ; 
But by good luck a lass i met. 

Just in the middle of my care, 
And kindly she did me invite 

To walk into a chamber fair. 

I bow'd fu' low unto this maid. 
And thank'd her for her courttsie ; 

I bow'd fu' low unto this maid. 
And bade her make the bed to me. 



* This song was wrilten in praise of Mijis Alexander 
of Balloehmyle. Bums happened one fine evening to 
meet this young lady, when walking through the 
beautiful woods of Ballocliniyle, wliieh lie at the dis- 
tance of two miles from his farm of Mossgiel. Struck 
with a sense of her passing beauty, he wrote this noble 
lyric; which he soon after sent to her, enclosed in a 
letter, as full of delicate and romantic senfiment, and 
as poetical as itself. He was somewhat mortified ta 
find, that either maidenly modest, or pride of supe- 
rior station.'prevented her from acknowledging the re- 
ceipt of his compliment : Indeed it is no where record- 
ed that she, at any stage of life, shewed the smallest 
sense of it ; as to her the pearls seem to have been li- 
terally thrown away. 

t There is an older and coarser song, containing the 
same incidents, and said to have been occasioned by an 
adventure of Charles II., when that monarch resided 
in Scotland with the Presbyterian army, 16'5()-^1. The 
aflair happened at the house of Port-Lethem, in Aber- 
deenshire, and it was a daughter of the laird that made 
the bed to the king. 



234 



BURNS' WORKS. 



She made the bed baith wide and braid, 
Wl' twa white hands she spread it doun ; 

She put the cup to her rosy lips, 

And drank, Young man, now sleep ye soun. 

She snatch 'd the candle in her hand, 

And from the chamber went wi' speed : 
But I ca'd her quickly back again, 

To lay some raair beneath my held. 
A cod she laid beneath my heid. 

And served me with a due respect ; 
And, to salute her wi' a kiss, 

I put my arms about her neck. 

Hand aff your hands, young man, she says. 

And dinna sae uncivil be ; 
It will be time to speak the morn. 

If ye hae ony love for me. 
Her hair was like the links o' gowd. 

Her teeth were like the ivorie, 
Her cheeks like lilies dipt in wine. 

The lass that made the bed tcme. 

Her bosom was the driven snaw, 

Twa driftit heaps sae fair to see ; 
Her limbs the polish'd marble stane, 

The lass that made the bed to me. 
I kiss'd her ower and ower again, 

And aye she wistna what to say ; 
I laid her 'tween me and the wa' ; 

The lassie thocht na lang till day. 

Upon the morrow, when we rase, 

I thank'd her for her courtesic ; 
And aye she blush'd, and aye she sigh'd, 

And said, Alas ! ye've ruin'd me. 
I clasp'd her waist, and kiss'd her syne, 

While the tear stood twinklin' in her eej 
I said, My lassie, dinna cry. 

For ye aye shall mak the bed to me. 

She took her mother's Holland sheets. 

And made them a' in sarks to me ; 
Blythe and merry may she be, 

The lass that made the bed to me. 
The bonnie lass that made the bed to me, 

The braw lass that made the bed to me ; 
I'll ne'er forget, till the day I dee, 

The lass that made the bed to me. 



THE LAZY MIST. 

The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill 
Concealing the course of the dark winding rill 
How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, ap- 
pear. 
As autumn to winter resigns the pale year. 
The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown 
And all the gay foppery of summer is flown : 
Apart let me wander, apart let me muse, 
How quick time is flying, how keen fate pur- 
sues; 



How long I have liv'd — but how much liv'd in 

vain ! 
How little of life's scanty span may remain : 
What aspects old Time, in his progress, has 

worn ; 
What ties cruel Fate in my bosom has torn. 
How foolish, or worse, 'till our summit is gain'd ! 
And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, 

how pain'd ! 
This life's not worth having with all it can give. 
For something beyond it poor man sure must 

live. 



THE LEA-RIG. 

Tune—" The Lea-Rig." 

When o'er the hills the eastern star 

Tells buchtin-.time is near, my jo ; 
And owsen frae the furrowed field 

Return sae douff and weary, O ; 
Down by the burn, where scented birk^ 

Wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo, 
I'll meet thee on the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie, O. 

In mirkest glen, at midnicht hour, 

I'd rove and ne'er be eerie, O, 
If through that glen I gaed to thee. 

My ain kind dearie, O. 
Although the night were ne'er sae wild. 

And I were ne'er sae wearie, O, 
I'd meet thee on the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie, O. 



THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS. 

The first half stanza of this ballad is old. 

The lovely lass o' Inverness, 

Nae joy nor pleasure can she see j 
For e'en and morn, she cries, alas ! 

And aye the saut tear blins her ee. 
Druraossie moor, Drumossie day, 

A waefu' day it was to me ; 
For there I lost my father dear^. 

My father dear and brethren three ; 

Their winding sheet the bluidy clay. 

Their graves ai"e growing green to see ' 
And by them lies the dearest lad 

That ever blest a woman s ee • 
Now wae to thee thou cruel lord, 

A bluidy man I trow thou be. 
For mony a heart thou hast made 3a\r, 

That ne'er did wrang to thine or thee ' 



SONGS. 



235 



THE LOVER'S MORNING SALUTE 
TO HIS MISTRESS. 

Tune—" Deil tak tlie wars." 

Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creature ? 

Rosy morn now lifts his eye, 
Numbering ilka bud which nature 

Waters wi' the tears o' joy : 

Now through the leafy woods, 

And by the reeking floods ; 
Wild Nature's tenants, freely, gladly stray ; 

The lintwhite in his bower 

Chants o'er the breathing flower : 

The lav' rock to the sky 

Ascends wi' sangs o' joy, 
While the sun and thou arise to bless the day.* 
Phoebus gilding the brow o' morning 

Banishes ilka darksome shade. 
Nature gladdening and adorning ; 

Such to me my lovely maid. 
When absent frae my fair. 

The murky shades o' care 
With starless gloom o'ercast my sullen sky ; 

But when iu beauty's light. 

She meets my ravish'd sight, 

When through my very heart 

Her beaming glories dart ; 
Tis then I wake to life, to light and joy. -j- 



THE RIGS O' BARLEY. 

Tune—" Corn-Rigs are bonnie." 

It was upon a Lammas night. 

When corn-rigs are bonnie, 
Beneath the moon's unclouded light, 

I held awa to Annie. 
The time flew by wi' tentless heed, 

'Till, 'tween the late and early, 
Wi' sma' persuasion shee agreed 

To see me through the barley. 

The sky was blue, the wind was still. 

The moon was shining clearly ; 
I set her down, wi' right good-will, 

Amang the rigs o' barley. 
I ken't her heart was a' my aln ; 

I loved her most sincerely ; 
I kiss'd her ower and ower again, 

Amang the rigs o' barley. 



♦ fd iatiou. Vo V to the streaming fouuain. 

Or up the heathy mountain 
The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly-wanton stray 

In twining hazel bowers 

His lay the linnet pours: 

The lav 'rock, &c. 

t Variation. When frae my Chloris parted. 
Sad, cheerless, broken-hearted. 
Then nighfs gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o'ercast 
my sky ; 
But when flic charms my sight. 
In pride of beauty's light. 
When thro' riiy very heart 
Her beaming glories dart ; 
'Tis then, 'tis then I wake to life and joy. 



I lock'd her in my fond embrace ! 

Her heart was beating rarely — 
My blessings on that happy place, 

Amang the rigs o' barley ! 
But by the moon and stai's so bright, 

That shone that hour sae clearly ! 
She aye shall bless that happy night, 

Amang the rigs o* barley. 

I hae been blythe wi' comrades dear j 

I hae been merry drinking ; 
I hae been joyfu' gathering gear ; 

I hae been happy thinking : 
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, 

Though they were doubled fairly. 
That happy night was worth them a' 

Amang the rigs o' barley. 



THE SOLDIER'S RETURN, 

Tune—" The MUl, Mill, O." 

When wUd war's deadly blast was blawn, 

And gentle peace returning, 
And eyes again wi' pleasure beam'd. 

That had been blear'd wi' mourning ; 
I left the lines and tented field. 

Where lang I'd been a lodger ; 
My humble knapsack a' my wealth ; 

A poor but honest sodger. 

A leal light heart beat in my breast, 

My hands unstain'd wi' plunder ; 
And for fair Scotia hame again, 

I cheery on did wander. 
I thought upon the banks o' Coil, 

I thought upon my Nancy ; 
I thought upon the witching smile, 

That caught ray youthful fancy. 

At length I reach'd the bonnie glen. 

Where early life I sported ; 
I pass'd the mill and trysting thorn. 

Where Nancy oft I courted. 
Wha spied I but my ain dear maid, 

Down by her mother's dwelling ? 
And turn'd me round to hide the flood 

That in my ec was swelling. 

Wi' alter'd voice, quoth I, sweet lass. 

Sweet as yon hawthorn's blossom, 
O ! happy, happy may he be. 

That's dearest to thy bosom ! 
My purse is light, I've far to gang. 

And fain wad be thy lodger ; 
I've serv'd my king and country lang . 

Tak pity on a sodger. 

Sae wistfully she gazed on me. 
And lovelier grew than over ; 

Quoth she, A sodger ance I loved, 
Forget him will I never. 



236 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Our humble cot and hamely fare. 
Ye freely shall partake o't ; 

That gallant badge, the dear cockade, 
Ye're welcome for the sake o't. 

She gazed — she redden'd like a rose- 
Syne pale as ony lily ; 
She sank within my arras, and cried, 



Art the 



ain dear Willie ? 



By Him, who made yon sun and sky. 

By whom true love's regarded ; 
I am the man ! and thus may still 

True lovers be rewarded. 

The wars are o'er, and I'm come hame. 

And find thee still true-hearted ; 
Though poor in gear, we're rich in love, 

And mair we'se ne'er be parted. 
Quoth she, ]\Iy grandsire left me gowd, 

A mailin plenish'd fairly ; 
Then come, ray falthfu' sodger lad, 

Thou'rt welcome to it dearly. 

For gold the merchant ploughs the main. 

The farmer ploughs the manor ; 
But glory is the sodger 's prize. 

The sodger's wealth is honour. 
The brave poor sodger ne'er despise, 

Nor count him as a stranger : 
Remember he's his country's stay, 

In day and hour o' danger. * 



THE BANKS OF NITH. 

Tune—" Robie Donna Gorach." 

The Thames flows proudly to the sea, 

Where royal cities stand ; 
But sweeter flows the Nith to me, 

Where Cummins ancc had high command : 
WTien shall I see that honoured land, 

That winding stream I love so dear ! 
Must wayward fortune's adverse hand 

For ever, ever keep me here. 

How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales, 

Where spreading hawthorns gaily bloom ; 
How sweetly wind thy sloping dales 

Where lambkins wanton thro' the broom ! 
Tho' wandering, now, must be my doom. 

Far from thy bonnie banks and braes, 
May there ray latest hours consume, 

Amang the friends of early days ! 



* " Bums, I have been informed," says a clergyman 
of Dumfrifsshive, in a letter to Mr. Gcort^c Thomson, 
editor of Select Melodies of Scotland, " was one sum- 
mer evening in the inn at Hrownhill, with a cou])le of 
friends, when a iioor way-worn soldier passed the win- 
dow. Of a sudden it struck the poet lo call him in, 
and get the recital of liis adventures; after hearing 
which, he all at oi.ce fell into one of tliose iits of ab- 
straction, not unusual to him. lie was lilted to (he 
region where he had his garland aud his singing-robes 
about him, and the result was this admirable song lie 
£cnt you for ' The M.ill, Mill, O.' " 



THE TOAST. 

At a meeting of the Dumfriesshire Volunteers, 
held to commemorate the anniversary of Rodney's 
victory, April 12th, 1782, Burns was called upon for 
a Song, instead of which he delivered the following 
Lines : — 

Instead of a song, boys, I'll give you a toast. 
Here's the memory of those on the twelfth that 
we lost ; — ■* 

That we lost, did 1 say, nay, by heav'n ! that 

we found, 
For their fame it shall last while the world goes 

round. 
The next in succession, I'll give you the King, 
Whoe'er would betray him on high may he 

swing ; 
And here's the grand fabric, our free Consti- 
tution, 
As built on the base of the great Revolution ; 
And longer with Politics not to be cramm'd. 
Be Anarchy curs'd, and be Tyranny damn'd ; 
And who would to Liberty e'er prove disloyal, 
May his son be a hangman, aud he his first trial. 



THERE'LL NEVER BE PEACE TILL 
JAMIE COMES HAME. 

This tune is sometimes called, There's feio 
yude Fellows when Willie's awa. — But I never 
have been able to meet with any thing else of 
the song than the title. 



Tune — " There'll never be peace till Jamie comes 
liame." 



By yon castle-wa', at the close o' the day, 

I heard a man sing, though his head it was 

grey; 
And, as he was singing, the tears down came — 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 

The church is in ruins, the state is in jars, 
Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars : 
We dauina weel say't, but we ken wha's to 

blame, — 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 

My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword, 
And now I greet round their green beds in the 

yird : 
It brak the sweet heart o' my faithfu' auld 

dame — 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 

Now life is a burden that bows me down, 
Since I tint my bairns, anrl he tint his (noun ; 
But till my last moments my words are the 

same,-— 
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 



SONGS 
TFIE STOWN GLANCE O' KINDNESS. 



237 



T^ijie — " Laddie, lie near me." 

'TwAS na her bonnie blue ee was my ruin ; 
Fair though she be, that was ne'er my undoin' : 
'Twas the dear smile when naebody did mind us, 
'Tvvas the bewitching, sweet, stown glance o' 
kindness. 

Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me, 
Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me ; 
But though fell fortune should fate us to sever, 
Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever. 

I\Iary, I'm thine wi' a passion sincerest. 
And thou hast plighted me love o' the dearest ! 
And thou'rt the angel that never can alter ; 
Soojier the sun in his motion shall falter. 



THERE'S NEWS, LASSES. 

There's news, lasses, news, 
Gude news hae I to tell ; 

There's a boat fu' o' lads 
Come to our toun to sell. 

The wean wants a cradle, 
A.nd the cradle wants a cod ; 

And ril no gang to my bed, 
Until I get a nod. 

Father, quo' she, IVIothcr, quo' she, 

Do ye what ye can, 
I'll no gang to my bed 

Till I get a man. 

The wean, §c. 

I hae' as gude a craft-rig 
As made o' yird and stanc ; 

And waly fa' the ley craj). 
For I maun till't again. 
The wean, Sfc. 



THE YOUNG HIGHLAND ROVER. 

Tune—" Morag." 

Loud blaw the frosty breezes. 

The siiaws the mountains cover ; 
Like winter on me seizes, 

Since my young highland rover 

Far wanders nations over. 
Where'er he go, where'er he stray, 

May heaven be his warden : 
Return him safe to fair Strathspey, 

And bonnie Castle- Gordon ! 

The trees now naked groaning, 
Shall soou wi' leaves be hinging, 



The birdies dowie moaning, 
Shall a' be blythely singing, 
And every flower be springing. 

Sae I'll rejoice the lee-lang day, 
When by his mighty warden 

My youth's returned to fair Strathspey, 
And bonnie Castle-Gordon.* 



THE WOODLARK. 

Tunc—" Where'U bonnie Annie lie." 
Or, " Loch-Erroch Side." 

O STAY, sweet warbling wood-lark, stay, 
Nor quit for me the trembling spray, 
A helpless lover courts thy lay, 
Thy soothing fond complaining. 

Again, again that tender part, 
That I may catch thy melting art ; 
For surely that wad touch her heart, 
Wha kills me wi' disdaining. 

Say, was thy little mate unkind, 
And heard thee as the careless wind ? 
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow joiji'd, 
Sic notes o' woe could waukeu. 

Thou tells o' never-ending care ; 
O' speechless grief, and dark despair : 
For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair? 
Or my poor heart is broken ! 



THERE'S A YOUTH IN THIS CITY. 

There's a youth in this city, it were a great 
pity 
That he from our lasses should wander awa ; 
For he's bonnie and braw, weol-favour'd with a', 

And his hair has a natural buckle and a'. 
His coat is the hue of his bonnet sae blue ; 

His fecket f is white as the new-driven snaw ; 
His hose they are blae, and his shoon like the 
slae. 
And his clear siller buckles they dazzle us a.' 
His coat is the hue, SfC. 

For beauty and fortune the laddie's been courtin ; 
Weel-featur'd, weel-tocher'd, weel mounted 
and braw ; 
But chiefly the siller, that gars him gang till her, 

The pennie's the jewel that beautifies a'. — 
There's jNIcg wi' the mailin, that fain wad a 
haen him. 
And Susy whase daddy was Laird o' the ha' ; 



» The younfT Ilipldand rover is supposed to be the 
yount; Chevalier, l^i ince dharles Kdwaril. 
\ All under-waistcoat with sleeves. 



238 



BURNS* WORKS. 



There's lang-tocher'd Nancy maist fetters his 
fancy, 
— But the laddie*9 dear sel he lo'es dearest of a'. 
His coat is the hue. See 



THE TOCHER FOR ME. 
Tune — " Balinamona Ora." 

AwA wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms, 
The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms ; 
O, gie me the lass that has acres o' charms, 
O, gie me the lass wi' the weel-stockit farms. 
Then hey for a lass ivV a tocher, then hey for 

a lass wi' a tocher. 
Then hey for a lass zvV a tocher ; the nice 
yellow guineas for me. 

Yoirr beauty's a flower, in the morning that 

blows, 
And withers the faster, the faster it grows ; 
But the rapturous charm o' the bonnie green 

knowes. 
Ilk spring they're new deckit wi' bonnie white 

yowes. 

Then hey, §t. 

And e'en when this beauty your bosom has blest, 

The brightest o* beauty may cloy, when possest ; 

But the sweet yellow darlings wi' Geordie im- 
prest, 

The langer ye hae them — the mair they're ca- 
rest. 

Then hey, §-c. 



THIS IS NO MY AIN LASSIE. 

I SEE a form, I see a face. 
Ye weel may wi' the fairest place : 
It wants, to me, the witching grace, 
The kind love that's in her ee. 
O this is no my ain lassie. 

Fair though the lassie be ; 
O weel ken I my ain lassie, 
Kind love is in her ee. 

She's bonnie, blooming, straight, and tall. 
And lang has had my heart in thrall ; 
And aye it charms my very saul. 
The kind love that's in her ee. 
O this is no my ain lassie, Sfc. 

A thief sae pawkie is my Jean, 
To steal a blink, by a' unseen ; 
But gleg as light are lover's een, 
When kind love is in the ee. 

O this is no my ain lassie, §*c. 

It may escape the courtly sparks. 
It may escape the learned clerks ; 



But weel the watching lover marks 
The kind lo^e that's in her ee. 
O this is no my ain lassie, §c. 



THERE WAS ONCE A DA*. 

Tutu — " Caledonian Hunt's Delight" 

There was once a day, but old Time then was 
young, 
That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line, 
From some of your northern deities sprung, 
(WTio knows not that brave Caledonia's di- 
vine ? ) 
From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain. 
To hunt, or to pasture, or to do what she 
would : 
Her heavenly relations there fixed her reign, 
And pledg'd her their godheads to warrant 
it good. 

A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war. 

The pride of her kindred the heroine grew : 
Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore, — ■ 
" Whoe'er shall provoke thee th' encounter 
shall I'ue !" 
With tillage or pasture at times she would sport. 
To feed her fair flocks by her gi-een rustling 
corn; 
But chiefly the woods were here fav'rite resort, 
Her darling amusement, the hounds and the 
horn. 

Long quiet she reigned ; 'till thitherward steers 

A flight of bold eagles from Adria's strand ; * 
Repeated, successive, for many long years. 

They darken'd the air, and they plundered 
the land : 
Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry, 

They'd conquer'd and ruin'd a world beside : 
She took to her hills and her arrows let fly, 

The dai-Lng invaders they fled or they died. 

The fell Harpy-raven took wing from the north. 
The scourge of the seas, and the dread of 
the shore ;+ 
The wild Scandinavian boar issued forth 

To wanton in carnage, and wallow in gore :^ 
O'er countries and kingdoms their fury pre- 
vail'd. 
No arts could appease them, nor arms could 
repel ; 
But brave Caledonia in vain they assail'd. 
As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie 
tell.§ 

The Cameleon-savage disturb'd her repose, 
With tumult, disquiet, rebellion and strife ; 



* The Romans, t The Saxons, i The Danes. 
§ Two famous battles, in which the Danes or Nor- 
wegians were defeated. 



SONGS, 



239 



Provoked beyond beariug, at last she arose, 
And vobbM him at once of his hopes and his 
hfe:* 
The Anghan lion, the terror of France, 

Oft pro\vling, ensanguin'd the Tweed's sil- 
ver flood ; 
But taught by the bright Caledonian lance. 
He learned to fear in his own native wood. 

Thus bold, independent, unconquer'd and free, 

Her bright course of glory for ever shall run : 
For brave Caledonia immortal must be ; 

I'll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun : 
Rectangle triangle, the figure we'll choose. 

The upright is Chance, and old Time is the 
base ; 
But brave Caledonia's the hypothenuse ; 

Then ergo she'll match them, and match 
them always, f 



THOU HAST LEFT ME EVER, JAMIE. 

Thine—" Fee him. Father." 

Thou hast left rae ever, Jamie, 

Thou hast left me ever ; 
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie, 

Thou hast left me ever. 
Aften hast thou vow'd that death 

Only should us sever ; 
Now thou'st left thy lass for aye — 

I maun see thee never, Jamie, 
I'll see thee never. 

Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie, 

Thou hast me forsaken ; 
Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie, 

Thou hast me forsaken. 
Thou canst love another jo. 

While my heart is breaking : 
Soon my weary een I'll close. 

Never more to waken, Jamie, 
Never more to waken. 



TIBBIE, I HAE SEEN THE DAY. 

THIS SONG I COMPOSED ABOUT THE AGE OF 
SEVKNXEEN. 

Tune—" Invcrcald's reel. 

O Tibbie, I hae seen the day 
Ye wadna been sae shi/ ; 
For laik o' gear ye lightly me, 
Sut trowth, 1 care na by. 



* The Highlanders of the Isles. 

t This singular figure of poetry, taken from the 
mathematics, refers to the famous ])roposition of Py- 
thagoras, the 47th of Euclid. In a right-angled tri- 
angle, the wjuare of the hypothenuse is always equal 
to the squares of the two other sides. 



Yestreen I met you on the moor. 
Ye sj)ak na, but gaed by like stoure ; 
Ye geek at me because I'm poor. 
But feint a hair care I. 
Tibbie, I hae, §*c. 

I doubt na, lass, but ye may think, 

Because ye hae the name o' clink. 

That ye can please me at a wink. 

Whene'er ye like to try. 

Tibbie, I hae, 8fc. 

But sorrow tak him that's sae mean, 
Altho' his pouch o' coin were clean, 
Wha follows ony saucy quean 
That looks sae proud and high. 
Tibbie, I hae, §t. 

Altho' a lad were e'er sae smart. 
If that he want the yellow dirt, 
Ye'll cast your head anither airt. 
An' answer him fu' dry. 
Tibbie, I hae, ^c. 

But if he hae the name o' gear, 
Ye'll fasten to him like a brier, 
Tho' hardly he for sense or lear 
Be better than the kye. 
Tibbie, I hae, 8fc. 

But, Tibbie, lass, tak my advice. 
Your daddie's gear maks you sae nice, 
The deil a ane wad speir your price, 
Were ye as poor as I. 
Tibbie, I hae, ^c. 

There lives a lass in yonder park, 
I wouldna gie her in her sark 
For thee wi' a' thy thousand mark ; 
Ye need na look sae high. 
Tibbie, I hae, 8fc. 



TO MARY IN HEAVEN. 

Thou ling'ring star, with less'uing ray, 

That lov'st to greet the early morn ! 
Again thou usher'st in the day, 

INIy Mary from my soul was torn. 
Oh, Mary, dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 

That sacred hour can I forget ? — 

Can I forget the hallow'd grove. 
Where, by the winding Ayr, we met. 

To live one day of j)arting love ? 
Eternity will not eflace 

Those records dear of transports past ; 
Thy image at our last embrace ; — 

Ah ! little thought we 'twas our last ! 



240 



BURNS' WORKS. 



AjT, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore, 

O'erhung with wild woods thickening green ; 
The fragrant birch, the hawthorn hoar, 

Twined amorous round the raptured scene. 
The flowers sprung wanton to be prest, 

The birds sung love on every spray ; 
Till too, too soon the glowing west 

Proclaim'd the speed of winged day. 

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, 

And fondly broods with miser care ; 
Time but the impression stronger makes, 

As streams their channels deeper wear. 
My JMary, dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
See'st thou lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ?* 



TRUE HEARTED WAS HE. 

TuTie—'" Bonnie Dundee." 

True hearted was he, the sad swain o' the 
Yarrow, 
And fair are the maids on the banks o' the 
Ayr, 
But by the sweet side o' the Nith's winding 
river. 
Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair ; 
To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over : 

To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain, 
Grace, beauty and elegance fetter her lover, 
And maidenly modesty fixes the chain. 

O fresh is the rose in the gay, dewy morning. 

And sweet is the lily at evening close ; 
But in the fair j^resence o' lovely young Jessie, 

Unseen is the lily, unheeded the rose. 
Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring ; 

Enthrou'd in her een he delivers his law : 
And still to her charms she alone is a stranger, 

Her modest demeanour's the jewel of a'. 



WANDERING WILLIE. 

Tune—" Here awa, there awa." 

Here atva, there awa, tvandering Willie ! 

Hare atca, there awa, hand awa hame ! 
Cume to my hobom, my ain only dearie ; 

Ttll me thou hriny'st me )ny Willie again. 

Winter winds blew loud and cauld at our part- 
ing ; 
Fears for my Willie brought tears in my ee : 
Welcome now, summer, and welcome, my Willie ; 
The summer to nature, and Willie to me. 
Mere awa, 8fc. 



* To Mary Campbell, one of Burns's earliest and 
inost beloved mistresses, a thiiry-maid in the nei},'h- 
bonrhood of Mossgiel.— See farther particulars in the 
Life. 



Rest, ye wild storms, in the caves of your slum- 
bers ! 
How your dread howling a lover alarms ! 
Wauken, ye breezes ! row gently, ye bUlows ! 
And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms. 
Here awa, 8fc. 

But, oh, if he's faithless, and minds na his Nannie, 
Flow still between us, thou dark heaving main ! 

JMay I never see it, may I never trow it, 

But, dying, believe that my Willie's my ain ! 
Here awa, §t. 



WAE IS MY HEART. 

Wae is my heart, and the tear's in my ee ; 
Lang, lang joy's been a stranger to me : 
Forsaken and friendless my burden I bear, 
And the sweet voice o' pity ne'er sounds in my ear. 

Love thou hast pleasures ; and deep hae I loved ; 
Love thou hast sorrows ; and sair hae I proved : 
But this bruised heart that now bleeds in my 

breast, 
I can feel by its throbbings will soon be at rest. 

O if I were, where happy I hae been ; 
Down by yon stream and yon bonnie castle green : 
For there he is wand'ring and musing on me, 
Wha wad soon dry the tear frae his Phillis's ee. 



WHAT CAN A YOUNG LASSIE DO 
Wr AN AULD MAN. 

What can a young lassie, what shall a young 
lassie, 
What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man ? 
Bad luck on the pennie that tempted my miunie 
To sell her poor Jenny for siller an' Ian' ! 
JBad luck on the pennie, ^c. 

He's always compleenin frae mornin to e'enin. 
He hosts and he hirples the weary day lang, 

He's doy'lt and he's dozin, his bluid it is frozen, 
O' dreary's the night wi' a crazy auld man ! 
Sad luck 0^ the pennie, Sfc. 

He hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers ; 

I never can please him, do a' that I can ; 
He's peevish, and jealous of a' the young fellows, 

O, dool on the day, I met wi' an auld man ! 
JBad luck on the pennie, ^c. 

My auld auntie Katie upon me takes pity, 
I'll do my endeavour to follow her plan ; 
I'll cross him, and wrack him, until I heart- 
break him. 
And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan. 
Had luck on the pennie, 8fc. 



SONGS. 



im 



WHA IS THAT AT UY BOWER DOOR. 

This tune is also known by the name of iass 
an I come near thee. The words are mine. 

Wha is that at my bower door ? 

O wha is it but Findlay ; — 
Then gae your gate ye'se nae be here I 

Indeed maun I, quo' Findlay. 
What mak ye sae like a thief? 

O come and see, quo' Findlay ; — 
Before the moru ye'll work mischief ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 

Gif I nse and let you in ? 

Let me in, quo' Findlay ; — ■ 
Ye'U keep me waukin wi' your din j 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 
In my bower if ye should stay ? 

Let me stay, quo' Findlay ; — 
I fear ye'll bide till break o' day ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 

Here this night if ye remain ? 

I'll remain, quo' Findlay ; — 
I dread ye'll learn the gate again ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay ; 
What may pass within this bower ; 

Let it pass, quo' Findlay ; — 
Ye maun conceal 'till your last hour ; 

Indeed will I, quo* Findlay ! 



WHEN GUILDFORD GOOD 



A FRAGMENT. 



Tune—" Killicrankie. 



When Guildford good our pUot stood, 

And did our helm thraw, man, 
Ae night, at tea, began a plea, 

Within America, man : 
Then up they gat the maskin-pat. 

And in the sea did jaw, man ; 
An' did nae less, in full Congress, 

Than quite refuse our law, man. 

Then thro' the lakes Montgomery takes, 

I Wdt he was na slaw, man : 
Down Lowrie's hum he took a turn, 

And Carleton did ca', man : 
But yet, what-reck, he, at Quebec, 

Montgomery-like did fa', man ; 
Wi' sword iu hand, before his band, 

Aniang his enemies a', man. 

Poor Tammy Gage, within a cage, 
Was kept at Boston ha\ man ; 

Till Willie Howe took o'er the knowe 
For Philadelphia, man : 

Wi' sword an' gun he thought a sin 
Guid Christian blood to draw, manj 



But at New- York, wi' knife and fork, 
Sir-loin he hacked sma', man. 

Burgoync gaed up, like spur an' whip, 

Till Fraser brave did fa' man ; 
Then lost his way, ae misty day, 

In Saratoga shaw, man. 
Cornwallis fought as lung's he dought, 

An' did the buckskins claw, man ; 
But Clintons glaive frae rust to save, 

He hung it to the wa', man. 

Then Montague, an' Guildford too. 

Began to fear a fa', man ; 
And Sackville doure, wha stood the stoure, 

The German chief to thraw, man : 
For Paddy Burke, like onie Turk, 

Nae mercy had at a', man ; 
An* Charlie Fox threw by the box, 

An' lows'd his tinkler jaw, man- 
Then Rockingham took up the game ; 

Till death did on him ca', man ; 
When Shelburne meek held up his cheek, 

Conform to gospel law, man. 
Saint Stephen's boys, wi' jarring noise. 

They did his measures thraw, man, 
For North and Fox united stocks. 

And bore him to the wa', man. 

Then clubs an' hearts were Charlie's carteS/ 

He swept the stakes awa', man. 
Till the diamond's ace of Indian race. 

Led him a s,a\v faux pas, man : 
The Saxon lads, wi' loud placads. 

On Chatham's boy did ca', man ; 
And Scotland drew her pipe, an' blew, 

" Up, Willie, waur them a', man !" 

Behind the throne then Grenville's gone, 

A secret word or twa, man ; 
While slee Dnndas arous'd the class 

Be-north the Roman wa', man : 
An' Chatham's wraith, in heavenly graith, 

(Inspired bardies saw, man) 
Wi' kindling eyes, cry'd, " Willie, rise ! 

Would I ha'e fear'd them a', man ?" 

But word an' blow, North, Fox, and Co. 

Gowflf'd Willie like a ba', man. 
Till Svthrons raise, and coost their claise 

Behind him in a raw, man ; 
An' Caledon threw by the drone, 

An' did her whittle draw, man ; 
An' swoor fu* rude, thro' dirt and blood 

To make it guid in law, man. 



61 



242 



BURNS' WORKS. 



WHERE ARE THE JOYS I HAE MET 
IN THE MORNING. 

Tune^" Saw ye my father." 

Where are the joys I hae met in the morning. 
That danced to the lark's early song ? 

Where is the peace that awaited my wandering, 
At evening the wild woods among ? 

No more a-windiug the course of yon river, 
And marking sweet flow'rets so fair ; 

No more I trace the light footsteps of pleasure, 
But sorrow and sad- sighing care. 

Is it that summer's forsaken our valleys, 

And glim surly winter is near? 
No, no, the bees humming round the gay roses. 

Proclaim it the pride of the year. 

Fain would I hide what I fear to discover. 
Yet long, long too well have I known : 

All that has caused this wreck in my bosom. 
Is Jenny, fair Jenny alone. 

Time cannot aid me, my griefs are immortal. 
Nor Hope dare a comfort bestow : 

Come then, enamour'd and fond of my anguish, 
Enjoyment I'll seek in my woe. 



WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU, 
MY LAD. 

O whistle and III come to you, my lad*, 
O whistle and III come to you, my lad ; 
Tho" father and mither and a' should gae mad, 
O whistle and Fll come to you, my lad. 

But warily tent when ye come to court me. 
And come nae unless the back-yett be ajee ; 
Syne up the back style, and let nae body see. 
And come as ye were nae comin' to me. 
And come as ye were nae comin' to me. 
O whistle, §'c. 

At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me, 
Gang by me as tho' that ye cared nae a flie ; 
But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black e'ee, 
Yet look as ye were nae lookin' at me. 
Yet look as ye were nae lookin' at me. 
O whistle, 8fc. 

Aye vow and protest that ye care na for me, 
And whiles ye may lightly my beauty a wee ; 
But court nae anither, tho' jokin ye be. 
For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me. 
For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me. 
O whistle, ^c. 



* In some of the MSS. the first four lines run thus 
O whistle and I'll come to thee, my jo, 
O whistle and I'll come to thee, my jo; 
Tho' father and mother and a' should say no, 
O whistle and I'll come to thee, my jo. 



WILLIE BREW'D A PECK O' MAUT 

This air is Masterton's ; the song mine.— < 
The occasion of it was this : — Mr. Wm. Nicol, 
of the High School, Edinburgh, during the au- 
tumn vacation, being at Moffat, honest Allan, 
who was at that time on a visit to Dalswlnton, 
and I went to pay Nicol a visit. — We had such 
a joyous meeting, that INIr. Masterton and I 
agreed, each in our own way, that we should 
celebrate the business. 

O Willie brew'd peck o' maut, ' 

And Rob and Allan cam to see ; 
Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night, 
Ye wad na find in Christendie. 

We are nafou, we're na that fou, 

JButjtist a drappie in our ee ; 
/The cock may craw, the day may daw, 
And ay loe'll taste the barley bree. 

Here are we met, three merry boys. 
Three merry boys I trou are we ; 

And mony a night we've merry been. 
And mony mae we hope to be ,! 
We are nafouySfp^^ ^^.^,...^ \: 

'■' ^,., :: ,1 II. - 

It is the moon, I ken her horn, ; ^hUi iadU 
That's blinkin in the lift sae hie; ■ rj li 1%! 

She shines sae bright to wyle us hame. 
But by my sooth she'll wait a we ! 
We are nafou, ^c. 

Wha first shall rise to gang awa', 

A cuckold, coward loun is he ! 
Wha last beside his chair shall fa'. 

He is the king amang us three ! 
We are nafou, ^c. 



WILT THOU BE MY DEARIE. 

Tune—" The Sutor's Dochter." 

Wilt thou be ray dearie : 

When sorrow wrings thy gentle heart. 

Wilt thou let me cheer thee : 

By the treasure of my soul. 

That's the love I bear thee ! 

I swear and vow that only ♦^hou 

Shall ever be my dearie. 

Only thou, I swear and vow. 

Shall ever be my dearie. 

Lassie, say thou lo'es me ; 
Or if thou wilt na be my ain. 
Say na thou'lt refuse me : 
If it winna, canna be, 
Thou for thine may choose me. 
Let me, lassie, quickly die, 
Trusting that thou lo'es me ; 
Lassie let me quickly die, 
Trustijag that thou lo'es me. 



SONGS. 



243 



WILL YE GO TO THE INDIES, MY 
JMARY ? 

Tune—" The Yowe-buchLs." 

Will ye go to the Indies, my Marys 

And leave auld Scotia's shore ? 
Will ye p:o the Indies, my Mary, 

Across the Atlantic's roar ? 

Oh, sweet grow the lime and the orange, 

And the apple on the pine ; 
But a* the charms o' the Indies 

Can never equal thine. 

I hae sworn by the heavens, my Mary, 
I hae sworn by the heavens to be true ; 

And sae may the heavens forget me, 
When I forget my vow ! 

O, plight me your faith, my Mary, 
And plight me your lily-white hand ; 

O, plight me your faith, my Mary, 
Before I leave Scotia's strand. 

We hae plighted our troth, ray Mary, 

In mutual affection to join ; 
And curst be the cause that shall part us ! 

The hour and the moment o' time ! • 



YON WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS. 

Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide. 
That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the 

Clyde, 
Where the grouse lead their coveys thro' the 

heather to feed, 
And the shepherd tents his flock as he pipes on 

his reed : 

Where the grouse, %■€. 

Not Cowrie's rich valley, nor Forth's sunny 

shores, 
To me hae the charms o' yon wild, mossy moors ; 
For there, by a lanely, and sequester'd stream, 
Resides a sweet lassie, ray thought and my 

dream. 

For there, 8fc. 

Amang thae wild mountains shall still be my 

path. 
Ilk stream foaming down its ain green, narrow 

strath ; 
For there, wi' my lassie, the day lang I rove. 
While o'er us unheeded, flie the swift hours o' 

love. 

For there, 8cc. 



* When Bums was designing his voyage to the 
West Indies, he wrote this song as a farewell to a girl 
whom he happened to regard, at the time, with con- 
siderable admiration. He afterwards sent it to Mr. 
Thomson for publication in his splendid collection of 
Uie national music and musical poetry of Scotland. 



She is not the fairest, altUo' she is fair ; 
O' nice education but sma' is her share ; 
Her parentage humble as humble can be ; 
But I lo'e the dear lassie because she lo'es me. 
Her parentage, Sfc. 

To beauty what man but maun yield him a 

prize. 
In her armour of glances, and blushes, and 

sighs ; 
And when wit and refinement hae polished her 

darts. 
They dazzle our een, as they flie to our hearts. 
And when 7vit, ^c. 

But kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond spark- 
ling e'e. 

Has lustre outshining the diamond to me ; 

And the heart-beating love, as I'm clasp'd in 
her arms, 

O, these are my lassie's all-conquering charms ! 
And the heart-heating, S^c, 



YOUNG JOCKEY. 

Tune — " Jockie was the blythest lad." 

Young Jockey was the blithest lad 

In a' our town or here awa ; 
Fu' blithe he whistled at the gaud, 

Fu' lightly danc'd he in the ha' ! 
He roos'd my e'en sae bonnie blue. 

He roos'd my waist sae genty sma j 
An' ay my heart came to my mou. 

When ne'er a body heard or saw. 

My Jockey tolls upon the plain, 

Thro' wind and weet, thro' fi-ost and snaw 
And o'er the lee I leuk fu' fain 

When Jockey's owsen hameward ca'. 
An' ay the night comes round again. 

When in his arms he taks me a' ; 
An' ay he vows he'll be my ain 

As lang's he has a breath to draw. 



YOUNG PEGGY 

Young Peggy blooms our bonniest lass, 

Her blush is like the morning. 
The rosy dawn, the springing grass. 

With early gems adorning : 
Her eyes outshine the radiant beams 

That gild the passing shower, 
And glitter o'er the crystal streams. 

And cheer each fresh'ning flower. 

Her lips more than the cherries bright, 
A richer die has grac'd thera. 

They charm th' admiring gazer's sight 
And sweetly tempt to taste them : 



244 



BURNS* WORKS. 



Her smile is as the evening mild, 
When feather'd pairs are courting, 

And little lambkins wanton wUd, 
In playful bands disporting. 

Were Fortune lovely Peggy's foe, 

Such sweetness would relent her, 
As blooming spring unbends the brow 

Of surly, savage winter. 
Detraction's eye no aim can gain 

Her winning pow'rs to lessen : 
And fretful envy grins in vain. 

The poison'd tooth to fasten. 



Ye pow'rs of Honour, Love, and Truth, 

From ev'ry ill defend her ; 
Inspire the highly favour'd youth 

The destinies intend her ; 
Still fan the sweet connubial flame 

Responsive in each bosom ; 
And bless the dear parental name 

With many a filial blossom.* 



* This was one of the poet's earliest compositions. 
It is copied from a MS. book, which he had before his 
first publication. 



CORRESPONDENCE 



.,f..,.. f.i 



ROBERT BURNS 



246 



THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



NOTICE. 



Of the following letters of Burns, a consid- 
erable number were transmitted for publication, 
by the individuals to whom they were addressed ; 
but very few have been printed entire. It wiU 
easily be believed, that in a series of letters writ- 
ten wuthout the least view to publication, va- 
rious passages were found unfit for the press, 
from different considerations. It will also be 
readily supposed, that our Poet, writing nearly 
at the same time, and under the same feelings 
to different individuals, would sometimes fall 
into the same train of sentiment and forms of 
expression. To avoid, therefore, the tedious- 
ness of such repetitions, it has been found ne- 
cessary to mutilate many of the individual let- 
ters, and sometimes to exscind parts of great 
delicacy — the unbridled effusions of panegjTic 
and regard. But though many of the letters 
are printed from originals furnished by the per- 
sons to whom they were addressed, others are 
printed from first draughts, or sketches, found 
among the papers of our Bard. Though in ge- 
neral no man committed his thoughts to his 
correspondents with less consideration or effort 
than Burns, yet it appears that in some instances 
he was dissatisfied with his first essays, and 
wrote out his communications in a fairer cha- 
racter, or perhaps in more studied language. 
In the chaos of his manuscripts, some of the 
original sketches were found ; and as these 
sketches, though less perfect, are fairly to be 
considered as the offspring of his mind, where 
they have seemed in themselves worthy of a 
place in this volume, and they have been in- 
serted, though they may not always correspond 
exactly with the letters transmitted, which have 
been lost or withheld. 

Our author appears at one time to have form- 
ed an intention of making a collection of his 
letters for the amusement of a friend. Accord- 
ingly he copied an inconsiderable number of 
them into a book, which he presented to Ro- 
bert Riddel, of Glenriddel, Esq. Among these 
was the account of his life, addressed to Dr. 
Moore, and printed in the Life. In copying 
from his imperfect sketches (it does not appear 
that he had the letters actually sent to his cor- 
respondents before him) he seems to have occa- 



sionally enlarged his observations, and altered 
his expressions. In such instances his emenda- 
tions have been adopted ; but in truth there are 
but five of the letters thus selected by the poet, 
to be found in the present volume, the rest be- 
ing thought of inferior merit, or otherwise unfit 
for the public eye. 

In printing this volume, the Editor has found 
some corrections of grammar necessary ; but 
these have been very few, and such as may be 
supposed to occur in the careless effusions, even 
of literary characters, who have not been in the 
habit of carrying their compositions to the press. 
These corrections have never been extended to 
any habitual modes of expression of the Poet, 
even where his phraseology may seem to violate 
the delicacies of taste ; or the idiom of our lan- 
guage, which he wrote in general with great 
accuracy. Some difference will indeed be found 
in this respect in his earlier and in his later 
comjjositions ; and this volume will exhibit the 
progress of his style, as well as the history of 
his mind. In this Edition, several new letters 
were introduced not in Dr. Currie's Edition, 
and which have been taken from the works of 
Cromek and the more recent publishers. The 
series commences with the Bard's Love Letters 
— the first four being of that description. They 
were omitted from Dr. Currie's Edition : why, 
has not been explained. They have been held 
to be sufficiently interesting to be here inserted. 
He states the issue of the courtship in these terms ; 
— " To crown my distresses, a heUefiUe whom I 
adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me 
in the field of matrimony, jilted me with pecu- 
liar circumstances of mortification." Mr. Lock- 
hart remarks of the letters: — " They are surely 
as well worth preserving, as many in the Col- 
lection ; particularly when their early date is 
considered." — He then quotes from them large- 
ly, and adds, — " In such excellent English did 
Burns woo his country maidens, in at most his 
20th year." But we suspect the fault of the 
English was, that it was too good. It was too 
coldly correct to suit the taste of the fair maiden : 
had the wooer used a sprinkling of his native 
tongue, with a deeper infusion of his constitution- 
al enthusiasm, he might have had more success. 



247 



LETTER S, &c. 



LOVE LETTERS. 

No. I. 
(written about the year 1780.) 

I verily believe, my dear Eliza, that the pure 
genuine feelings of love, are as rare in the 
world as the pure genuine principles of virtue 
and piety. This, 1 hope, will account for the 
uncommon style of all my letters to you. By 
uncommon, I mean, their being written in such 
a serious manner, which, to tell you the truth, 
has made me often afraid lest you should take 
me for a zealous bigot, who conversed with his 
mistress as he would converse with his minis- 
ter. I don't know how it is, my dear ; for 
though, except your company, there is nothing 
on earth that gives me so much pleasure as 
writing to you, yet it never gives me those 
giddy raptures so much talked of among lovers. 
I have often thought, thatif a well-grounded af- 
fection be not really a part of virtue, 'tis some- 
thing extremely a-kin to it. Whenever the 
thought of my Eliza warms my heart, every 
feeling of humanity, every principle of genero- 
sity, kindles in my breast. It extinguishes every 
dirty spark of malice and envy, which are but 
too apt to infest me. I grasp every creature 
in the arms of universal benevolence, and equal- 
ly participate in the pleasures of the happy, and 
sympathise with the miseries of the unfortunate. 
I assure you, my dear, I often look up to the 
divine Disposer of events, with an eye of gra- 
titude for the blessing which I hope he intends 
to bestow on me, in bestowing you. I sincere- 
ly wish that he may bless my endeavours to 
make your life as comfortable and happy as 
possible, both in sweetening the rougher parts 
of my natural temper, and bettering the un- 
kindly circumstances of my fortune. This, my 
dear, is a passion, at least in ray view, worthy 
of a man, and I will add, worthy of a Chris- 
tian. The sordid earth-worm may profess love 
to a woman's person, whilst, in reality, his af- 
fection is centered in her pocket ; and the sla- 
vish drudge may go a-wooing as he goes to the 
horse-market, to choose one who is stout and 
firm, and, as we may say of an old horse, one 
who will be a good drudge and draw kindly- 
I disdain their dirty, puny ideas, I would be 



heartily out of humour with myself, if I thought 
I were capable of having so poor a notion of 
the sex, which were designed to crown the 
pleasures of society. Poor devils ! I don't envy 
them their happiness who have such notions. 
For my part, I propose quite other pleasures 
with my dear partner 



No. II. 
TO THE SAME. 

MY r>£AK ELIZA, 

I uo not remember in the course of your ac- 
quaintance and mine, ever to have heard your 
opinion on the ordinary way of falling in love, 
amongst people of our station of life : I do not 
mean the persons who proceed in the way of 
bargain, but those whose affection is really pla^- 
ced on the person. 

Though I be, as you know very well, but a 
very awkward lover myself, yet as I have some 
opportunities of observing the conduct of others 
who are much better skilled in the affair of 
courtship than I am, I often think it is owing 
to lucky chance more than to good manage- 
ment, that there are not more unhappy mar- 
riages than usually are. 

It is natural for a young fellow to like the 
acquaintance of the females, and customary for 
him to keep them company when occasion serves ; 
some one of them is more agreeable to him than 
the rest ; there is something, he knows not 
what, pleases him, he knows not how, in her 
company. This I take to be what is called love 
with the greatest part of us, and I must own, 
my dear Eliza, it is a hard game such a one as 
you have to play when you meet with such a 
lover. You cannot refuse but he is sincere, and 
yet though you use him ever so favourably, per- 
haps in a few months, or at farthest in a year 
or two, the same unaccountable fancy may mdic 
liim as distractedly fond of another, whilst you 
are quite forgot. I am aware, that perhaps the 
next time I have the pleasure of seeing you, you 
may bid me take my own lesson home, and tell 
me that the passion I have professed for you is 
perhaps one of those transient flashes I have 



248 



BURNS' WORKS. 



been describing ; but I hope, my dear Eliza, 
you will do me the justice to believe me, when 
I assure you, that the love I have for you is 
founded on the sacred principles of virtue and 
honour, and by consequence, so long as you con- 
tinue possessed of those amiable qualities which 
first inspired my passion for you, so long must I 
continue to love you. Believe me, my dear, it 
is love like this alone which can render the mar- 
ried state happy. People may talk of flames and 
raptures as long as they please ; and a warm 
fancy with a flow of youthful spirits, may make 
them feel something like what they describe ; 
but sure I am, the nobler fiiculties of the mind, 
with kindred feelings of the heart, can only be 
the foundation of friendship, and it has always 
been my opinion, that the man ied life was only 
friendship in a more exalted degree. 

If you will be so good as to grant my wishes, 
and it should please providence to sj)are us to 
the latest periods of life, I can look forward 
and see, that even then, though bent down 
with wrinkled age ; even then, when all other 
worldly circumstances Vvill be indiffi;rent to me, 
I will regard my Eliza with the tenderest af- 
fection, and for this plain reason, because she 
is still possessed of those noble qualities, im- 
proved to a much higher degree, which first 
inspired my affection for her. 

" O ! happy state, when souls each other di'aw, 
" When love is liberty, and nature law." 

I know, were. I to speak in such a style to 
many a girl who thinks herself possessed of no 
small share of sense, she would think it ridi- 
culous — but the language of the heart is, my 
dear Eliza, the only courtship I shall ever use 
to you. 

When I look over what I have written, I am 
sensible it is vastly different from the ordinary 
style of courtship — but I shall make no apolo- 
gy — I know your good nature will excuse what 
your good sense may see amiss. 



No. III. 
TO THE SAME. 

MY DEAR ELIZA, 

I HAVE often thought it a peculiarly un- 
lucky circumstance in love, that though, in 
every other situation in life, telling the truth is 
not only the safest, but actually by far the easi- 
est way of proceeding, a lover is never under 
greater difficulty in acting, or more puzzled for 
expression, than when his passion is sincere, 
and his intentions are honourable. I do not 
think that it is very difficult for a person of or- 
dinary capacity to talk of love and fondness, 
which are not felt, and to make vows of con- 
stancy and fidelity, which are never intended to 



be performed, if he be villain enough to prac- 
tise such detestable conduct : but to a man 
whose heart glows with the principles of in- 
tegrity and truth ; and who sincerely loves a 
woman of amiable person, uncommon refinement 
of sentiment, and purity of manners — to such a 
one, in such circumstances, I can assure you, 
my dear, from my own feelings at this present 
moment, courtship is a task indeed. There is 
such a number of foreboding fears, and distrust- 
ful anxieties crowd into my mind when I am in 
your company, or when I sit down to write to 
you, that what to speak or what to write I am 
altogether at a loss. 

There is one rule which I have hitherto prac- 
tised, and which I shall invariably keep with 
you, and that is, honestly to tell you the plain 
truth. There is something so mean and un- 
manly in the arts of dissimulation and falsehood, 
that I am surprised they can be used by any one 
in so noble, so generous a passion as virtuous 
love. No, my dear Eliza, I shall never endea- 
vour to gain your favour by such detestable 
practices. If you will be so good and so gener- 
ous as to admit me for your partner, your com- 
panion, your bosom friend through life ; there 
is nothing on this side of eternity shall give me 
greater transport ; but I shall never think of 
pui-chaiang your hand by any arts unworthy of 
a man, and I will add of a Christian. There is 
one thing, my dear, which I earnestly request of 
you, and it is this ; that you would soon either 
put an end to my hopes by a peremptory refusal, 
or cure me of my fears by a generous consent. 

It would oblige me much if you would send 
me a line or two when convenient. I shall on- 
ly add further, that if a behaviour regulated 
(though perhaps but very imperfectly) by the 
rules of honour and virtue, if a heart devoted to 
love and esteem you, and an earnest endeavour 
to promote your happiness ; and if these are 
qualities you would wish in a friend, in a hus- 
band ; I hope you shall ever find them in youi" 
real friend and sincere lover. 



No. IV. 



TO THE SAME. 

I OUGHT in good manners to have acknow- 
ledged the receipt of your letter before this time, 
but my heart was so shocked with the contents 
of it, that I can scarcely yet collect my thoughts 
80 as to write to you on the subject. I will not 
attempt to describe what I felt on receiving your 
letter. I read it over and over, again and again, 
and though it was in the politest language of re- 
fusal, still it was peremptory ; " ) ou were sorry 
you could not make me a return, but you wish 
me" what, without you, I never c-m obtain, 
" you wish me all kind of happiness." It would 
be weak and unmanly to say, that without you I 
never can be happy ; but sure I am, that shar- 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



219 



ingf life with you, would have given it a relish, 
that, wanting you, I never can taste. 

Your iiuconimou personal advantages, and 
your superior good sense, ilo not so much strike 
me ; these, jjossibly iu a few instances, may be 
met with in others ; but that amiable goodness, 
that tender feminine softness, that endearing 
sweetness of disposition, with all the charming 
offspring of a warm feeling heart — these I never 
again expect to meet with in such a degree in 
this world. All these charming qualities, heigh- 
tened by an education much beyond any thing 
1 have ever met with in any woman I ever dar- 
ed to approach, have made an impression on my 
heart that I do not think the world can ever ef- 
face. IMy imagination has fondly flattered itself 
with a wish, I dare not say it ever reached a 
hope, that possibly I might one day call you 
mine. I had formed the most delightful images, 
and my fancy fondly brooded over them ; but 
now I am wretched for the loss of what I really 
had no right expect. I must now think no 
more of you as a mistress, still T presume to ask 
to be admitted as a friend. As such I wish to 
be allowed to wait on you, and as I exjiect to 
remove in a few days a little farther off, and you, 
I suppose, will perhaps soon leave this place, I 
wish to see yon or hear from you soon ; and if 
an expression should perhaps escape me rather 
too warm for friendship, I liope you will pardon 

it in, my dear Miss — , (pardon me the dear 

expression for once.) 



LETTERS, 1783, 1784. 

No. V. 
TO MR. JOHN MURDOCH, 

SCHOOLMASTEK, 
STAl'LES INN BUII.WNGS, LONDON. 

DEAR SIR, Lochlee, loth January, 1783. 

As I have an opportunity of sending you a 
letter, without putting you to that exj)ense 
which any production of mine would but ill re- 
pay, I embrace it with pleasure, to tell you that 
I have not forgotten, nor ever will forget, the 
many obligations I lie under to your kindness 
and friendship, 

I do not doubt, Sir, bu* you will wish to 
know what has been the result of all the ])ains 
of an indulgent father, and a masterly teacher ; 
and I wish I could gratify your curiosity with 
such a recital as you would be pleased with ; 
but that is what I am afraid will not be the case. 
I have, indeed, kept pretty clear of vicious ha- 
bits ; and in this resnect, I hope, my conduct 
will not disgrace the -P-'ucation I have gotten ; 
but as a man of the world, I am most miser:ii)!y 
deficient. — One would have thought, that brrti 
as I have been, under a father who has fiji^ured 



pretty well as ^tu hominc tJca affairesy 1 might 
have been what the world calls a pushing, ac- 
tive fellow ; but, to tell you the truth, Sir, 
there is hardly any thing more my reverse. I 
seem to be one sent into the world to see, and 
observe ; and I very easily compound with the 
knave who tricks me of my money, if there be 
any thing original about him which shows me 
human nature in a different light from any thing 
I have seen before. In short, the joy of my 
heart is to " study men, their manners, and their 
ways;" and for this darling subject, I cheer- 
fully sacrifice every other consideration. I am 
quite indolent about those great concerns that 
set the bustling busy sons of care agog ; and if 
I have to answer for the present hour, I am very 
easy with regard to any thing further. Even 
the last, worst shift * of the unfortunate and 
the wretched, does not much terrify me : I know 
that even then my talent for what country folks 
call " a sensible crack," when once it is sancti- 
fied by a hoary head, would procure me so much 
esteem, that even then — I would learn to be 
haijjty. However, I am under no apprehensions 
about that ; for, though indolent, yet, so far as 
an extremely delicate constitution permits, I am 
not lazy ; and in many things, especially in ta- 
vern matters, I am a strict economist ; not in- 
deed for the sake of the money, but one of the 
])rinclpal parts in my composition is a kind of 
j)ride of stomach, and I scorn to fear the face of 
any man living : above every thing, I abhor as 
hell, the idea of sneaking in a corner to avoid a 
dun — possibly some pitiful, sordid wretch, who 
in my heart I despise and detest. 'Tis this, and 
this alone, that endears economj' to me. In the 
matter of books, indeed, I am very profuse. My 
favourite authors are of the sentimental kind, 
such as Shenstone, particularlv his Elegies ; 
Thomson ; Man of Feeling, a hook I prize next 
to the Bible; Man of the World; Sterne, 
especially his Sentimental Journey ; Macpher- 
soti's Ossian, ^c. These are the glorious mo- 
dels after which I endeavour to form my con- 
duct; and 'tis incogruous, 'tis absurd, to sup- 
pose that the man whose mind glows with sen- 
timents lightened up at their sacred flame — the 
man whose heart distends with benevolence to 
all the human race — he " who can soar above 
this little scene of things," can he descend to 
mind the paltry concerns about which the terriK- 
filial race fret, and fume, and vex themselves ? 

how the glorious triumph swells my heart ! 

1 forget that I am a poor insignificant devil, un- 
noticed and miknown, stalking up and dowa 
fairs and markets, wiien I hapi^en to be in them, 
reading a page or two of mankind, and " catch- 
ing the manners living as they rise," whilst the 
men of business jostle me on every side as an 
idle encumbrance in their way. — But I dare say 
I liave by this time tired your patience ; so I 
shall conclude with begging you to give Mrs. 



" The last shilt alhided to here, must be the cundi 
ion of an itinerant beggar 



230 



BURNS' VV0RKt5. 



Alurdoch — nut my compliments, for that is a 
ineie coimnon-place story, but — iny warmest, 
kindest wishes for her welfare ; and accept of 
the same for yourself, from, 

Dear Sir, 

Yours, &c. 



No VI. 



[tJJE following is taken from the MS. 
PROSE PRESENTED BY OUR BARD TO MR. 
RIDDEL.] 

On rummaging over some old papers, I light- 
ed on a MS. of my early years, in which I had 
determined to write myself out, as I was placed 
by fortune among a class of men to whom ray 
ideas would have been nonsense. I had meant 
that the book should have lain by me, in the 
fond hope that, some time or other, even after I 
was no more, my thoughts would fall into the 
hands of somebody capable of appreciating their 
value. It sets off thus : 

Observations, Hints, Songs, Scraps of Poe- 
try, Sfc. hy R. B. — a man who had little art in 
making money, and still less in keeping it ; but 
was, however, a man of some sense, and a great 
deal of honesty, and unbounded good-will to 
every creature, rational and irrational. As he 
was but little indebted to scholastic education, 
and bred at a plough-tail, his performances must 
be strongly tinctured with his unpolished rustic 
way of life ; but as I believe they are really his 
own, it may be some entertainment to a curious 
observer of human nature, to see how a plough- 
man thinks and feels, under the pressure of love, 
ambition, anxiety, grief, with the like cares and 
passions, which, however diversified by the 
modes and mariners of life, operate pretty much 
alike, I believe, on all the species. 

" There are numbers in the world who do 
not want sense to make a figure, so much as an 
o})inion of their own abilities, to put them upon 
recording their observations, and allowing them 
the same importance which they do to those 
which appear in print." — Shenstone. 

" Pleasing, ^yheu youth Is long expired, to trace 
The forms our pencil, or our pen designed ! 

Such was our youthful air, and shape, and face, 
Such the soft image of our youthful mind." 

Ibid. 

April, 1783. 
Notwithstanding all that has been said against 
love, respecting the folly and weakness it leads 
a young inexperienced mind into ; still I think it 
in a great measure deserves the highest enco- 
miums that have been passed on it. If any 
thing on earth deserves the name of rapture or 
transport, it is the feelings of green eighteen, in 
the company of the mistress of his heart, when 



she repays him with an cc^ual return of affec- 
tion. 



Auguat. 
There is certainly some connection between 
love, and music, and poetry ; and, therefore, I 
have always thought a fine touch of nature, that 
passage in a modern love composition : 



As tow'rd her cot, 1 



le jc)g 



<r'd along 



Her name was fi-equent in his song." 

For my own part, ' I never had the least 
thought or inclination of turning poet, till I got 
once heartily in love ; and then rhyme and song 
were, in a manner, the spontaneous language of 
my heart. 

September. 
I entirely agree with that judicious philoso- 
pher, Mr. Smith, in his excellent Theory of 
Moral Sentiments, that remorse is the most 
painful sentiment that can embitter the human 
bosom. Any ordinary pitch of fortitude may 
bear up tolerably well, under those calamities, 
in the procurement of which we ourselves have 
had no hand ; but when our follies or crimes 
have made us miserable and wretched, to bear 
up with manly firmness, and at the same time 
have a proper penitential sense of our miscon- 
duct, is a glorious effort of self-command. 

Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace. 
That press the soul, or wring the mind with an- 
guish. 
Beyond comparison the worst are those 
That to our folly or our guilt we owe. 
In every other circumstance, the mind 
Has this to say — " It was no deed of mine ;" 
But when to all the evil of misfortune 
This sting is added — " Blame thy foolish self!" 
Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse ; 
The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt— 
Of guilt, perhaps, where we've involved others , 
The young, the innocent, who fondly loved us. 
Nay, more, that very love their cause of ruin ! 
O burning hell ! in all thy store of torments. 
There's not a keener lash ! 
Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart 
Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime, 
Can reason down its agonizing throbs ; 
And, after proper purpose of amendment. 
Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace i 
O, happy ! happy ! enviable man ! 
O glorious magnanimity of soul. 



March, 1784. 

I have often observeV 'i the course of my 

experience of human life, that every man, even 

the worst, has something good .about him ; 

though very often nothing else than a hajipy 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



231 



temperament of constitution inclining him to 
this or that virtue. For this reason, no man 
can say in what degree .iny other person, he- 
sides himself, can he, with strict justice, called 
wicked. Let any of the strictest character for 
regularity of couduct among us, examine im- 
partially how many vices he has never been 
^^uilty of, not from ,any care or vigilance, but 
for want of opportunity, or some accidental cir- 
cumstance interveniug ; how many of the weak- 
nesses of mankind he has escaped, because he 
was out of the line of such temptation ; and, 
what often, if not always weighs more than all 
the rest, how much he is indebted to the world's 
good opinion, because the world does not know 
all : I say, any man who can thus think, will 
scan the failings, nay, the faults and crimes, of 
mankind around him, with a brother's eye. 

I have often courted the acquaintance of 
that part of mankind commonly known by the 
ordinary phrase of blackguards, sometimes far- 
ther than was consistent with the safety of my 
character ; those who, by thoughtless prodiga- 
lity or headstrong passions, have been driven 
to ruin. Though disgraced by follies, nay, 
sometimes " stained with guilt, .... 
. . . ," I have yet found among them, 
in not a few instances, some of the noblest vir- 
tues, magnanimity, generosity, disinterested 
friendship, and even modesty. 



April. 
As T am what the men of the world, if they 
knew such a man, would call a whimsical mor- 
tal, I have various sources of pleasure and en- 
joyment, which are, in a manner, peculiar to 
myself, or some here and there such other out- 
of-the-way person. Such is the peculiar plea- 
sure I take in the season of winter, more than 
the rest of the year. This, I believe, may be 
partly owing to my misfortunes giving my 
mind a melancholy cast: but there is some- 
thing even in the 

" Mighty tempest, and the hoary waste 
Abrupt and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried 
earth," — 

which raises the mind to a serious sublimity, 
favoui'able to every thing great and noble. 
There is scarcely any earthly object gives me 
more — I do not know if I should call it plea- 
sure — but something which exalts me, some- 
thing which enraptures me — than to walk in 
the sheltered side of the wood, or high planta- 
tion, in a cloudy winter-day, and hear the 
stormy wind howling among the trees, and 
raving over the plain. It is my best season 
for devotion : my mind is wrapt up in a kind 
of enthusiasm to Him, who, in the pompous 
language of the Hebrew bard, ** walks on the 
wings of the wind." lu one of these seasons. 



just after a train of misfortunes, I composed 
the following : 

The wintry west extends liis blast, &c. 
See Songs. 

Shenstone finely observes, that love-verses, 
writ without any real passion, are the most 
nauseous of all conceits ; and I have often 
thought that no man can be a proper critic of 
love-composifion, except he himself, in one or 
more instances, have been a warm votary of 
this passion. As I have been all along a 
miserable dupe to love, and have been led into 
a thousand weaknesses and follies by it, for 
that reason I put the more confidence in my 
critical skill, in distinguishing foppery, and con- 
(toit, from real p;ission and nature. Whether 
the following song will stand the test, I will 
not pretend to say, because it is my own ; only 
I can say it was at the time, genuine from the 
heart. 



Behind yon hills, &c. 



See Sonffs. 



I think the whole species of young men may 
be naturally enough divided into two grand 
classes, which I shall call the graiie and the 
inerry ; though, by the bye, these terms do not 
with propriety enough express my ideas. The 
grave I shall cast into the usual division of 
those who are goaded on by the love of money, 
and those whose darling wish is to make a 
figure in the world. The merry are, the men 
of pleasure of all denominations ; the jovial 
lads, who have too much fire and spirit to have 
any settled rule of action ; but without much 
deliberation, follow the strong impulses of na- 
ture ; the thoughtless, the careless, the indo- 
lent — in particular he, who, with a happy 
sweetness of natural temper, and a cheerful va- 
cancy of thought, steals through life — generally, 
indeed, in poverty and obscurity; but poverty 
and obscurity are only evils to him who can 
sit gravely down and make a repining compa- 
rison between his own situation and that of 
others ; and lastly to grace the quorum, such 
are, generally, those heads are capable of all 
the towerings of genius, and whose hearts are 
warmed with all the delicacy of feeling. 



As the grand end of human life is to cultivate 
an intercourse with that Being to whom we 
owe life, with every enjoyment that can render 
life delightful ; and to maintain an integritive 
conduct towards our fellow- creatures ; that so, 
by forming piety and virtue into habit, we may 
be fit members for that society of the pious and 
the good, which reason and revelation teach us 
to expect beyond the grave : I do not see that 
the turn of mind, and pm-suits of any son of po- 
verty and obscurity, are iu the least more inimi. 



252 



BURNS' WORKS. 



cal to the sacred interests of piety and virtue, 
than thf, even lawful, bustling and straining 
after the world's riches and honours ; and I do 
not see but that lie may gain Heaven as well 
(which, by the bye, is no mean consideration), 
wlio steals through the vale of life, amusing 
himself with every little flower that fortune 
throws in his way ; as he who, straining straight 
forward, and perhaps bespattering all about him, 
gains some of life's little enainences ; where, af- 
ter all, he can only see, and be seei?, a little more 
conspicuously, than what, in the pride of his 
heart, he is apt to term the poor, indolent devil 
he has left behind him. 



There is a noble sublimity, a heart-melting 
tenderness, in some of our ancient ballads, which 
shows them to be the work of a masterly hand : 
and it has often given me many a heart-ache to 
reflect, that such glorious old bards — bards who 
very probably owed all their talents to native 
genius, yet have described the exploits of he- 
rocs, the pangs of disai)pointment, and tlie melt- 
ings of love, with such fine strokes of nature — 
that their very names (O how mortifying to a 
bai'd's vanity!) are now "buried among the 
wieck of things which were." 

O ye illustrious names unknown ! who could 
feel so strongly and describe so well ; the last, 
the meanest of the muses' train — one who, 
though far inferior to your flights, yet eyes your 
path, and with trembling wing would sometimes 
soar after yoa — a poor rustic bard unknown, 
pays this sympathetic pang to your memory ! 
Some of you tell us, with all the charms of 
verse, that you have been unfortunate in the 
world — unfortunate in love : he too has felt the 
loss of his little fortune, the loss of friends, and, 
worse than all, the loss of the woman he adored. 
Like you, all his consolation was his muse : she 
taught him in rustic measures to complain. 
Happy could he have done it with your strength 
of imagination and flow of verse 1 ]\Iay the turf 
lie lightly on your bones ! and may you now 
enjoy that solace aud rest which this world sel- 
dom gives to the heart, tuned to all the feelings 
of poesy and love ! 



This is all worth quoting in my 1\ISS., and 
more than all. 

R. B. 



LETTERS, 1786. 

No. VII. 
TO MR. JOHN RICHMOND, Edinburgh. 

MY DEAR SIR, Mossgid, Feb. 17, 178G. 
I HAVE not time at present to upbraid you 



for your silence aud neglect ; I shall only say I 
received yours with great pleasure. I have en- 
closed you a piece of rhyming ware for your 
perusal. I have been very busy with the muses 
since I saw you, and have composed, among se- 
veral others, The Ordination, a poem on Mr. 
M'Kinlay's being called to Kilmarnock ; Scotch 
Drink, a poem ; Tiie Cotter s Saturday Night; 
An Address to the Devil, Sec, I have hkewise 
completed my poem on the Dogs, but have not 
shewn it to the world. My chief patron now 
is Mr. Aiken in Ayr, who is pleased to express 
great apj)robation of my works. Be so good as 
send me Fergusson, by Connel,* and I will re- 
mit you the money. I have no news to ac- 
quaint you with about Mauchline, they are just 
going on in the old way. I have some very im- 
portant news with respect to myself, not the 
most agreeable, news that I am sure you cannot 
guess, but I shall give you the particulars an- 
other time. I am extremely happy with Smith ;f 
he is the only friend I have now in INIauchline. 
I can scarcely forgive vour long neglect of me, 
and I beg you will let me hear from you regu- 
larly by Connel. If you would act your part as 
a FRIEND, I am sure neither good nor had for- 
tune should strange or idter me. Excuse haste, 

as I got vours but vesterday I am, 

My dear Sir, 
Yours, 
ROBt. BURNESS.t 



No. VIII. 



TO MR. M'WHINNIE, Writer, Ayr. 

Mossgid, 11 th April, 1786. 

It is injuring some hearts, those hearts that 
elegantly bear the impression of the good Crea- 
tor, to say to them you give them the trouble 
of obliging a friend ; for this reason, I only tell 
you that I gratify my own feelings in requesting 
your friendly oflSices wath respect to the enclosed, 
because I know it will gratify yours to assist 
me in it to the utmost of your power. 

I have sent you four copies, as I have no less 
than eight dozen, which is a great deal more 
than I shall ever need. 

Be sure to remember a poor poet militant in 
your prayers. He looks forward with fear and 
trembling to that, to him, important moment 



* Connel— the Mauchline carrier. 

t ^Ir. James S)nit/i, then a shop-keeper in Maucli- 
hne. It was to this young man tiiat Bums addressed 
one of his finest performances—" To J. S " be- 
ginning 

" Dear S , tlie slccst, paukie thief." 

lie died in the West-Indks. 

t This is the only letter the Editor has met with in 
which the Poet adds the termination ess to his name, 
as his father and family liad spelled it. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



253 



which stamps the die with — witli — with, pei 
haps the eternal disgrace of, 
My dear Sir, 
You humbled, 
afflicted, 
tormented 

ROBr. BURNS. 



No. TX. 



TO MONS. JAMES SMITH, Maucui.ine. 
Monday Morning, Mossgiel, 1786. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

I WENT to Dr. Douf>]as yesterday fully re- 
solved to take the opportunity of Capt. Smith ; 
but I found the Doctor with a Mr, and IMrs. 
White, both Jamaicans, and tliey have deranged 
my plans altogether. They assure him that to 
send me from Savannah la IMar to Port Antonio 
will cost my master, Charles Douglas, upwards 
of fifty pounds ; besides running the risk of 
throwing myself into a pleuritic fever in conse- 
quence of hard travelling in tlie sun. On these 
accounts, he refuses sending me with Smith, but 
a vessel sails from Greenock the first of Sept. 
right for the place of my destination. The Cap- 
tain of her is an intimate of Mx. Gavin Hamil- 
ton's, and as good a fellow as heart could wish : 
with him 1 am destined to go. Wliere I shall 
shelter, I know not, but I hope to weather the 
storm. Perish the drop of blood of mine that 
fears them ! I know their worst, and am pre- 
pared to meet it. — 

I'll laugh, an' sing, an' shake my leg, 
As lang's I dow. 

On Thursday morning, if you can nmster as 
much self-denial as to be out of bed about seven 
o'clock, I shall see you as 1 ride through to 
Cumnock. After all, Heaven bless the sex ! 
I feel there is still happiness for me among 
them, — 

O woman, lovely woman ! Heaven designed you 
To temper man ! we had been brutes without 
vou ! 



No. X. 

TO MR. DAVID BRICE. 

DEAR BRICE, Mossgiel, June 12, 178G. 

I RECEIVED your message by G. Paterson, 
and as I am not very throng at present, I just 
write to let you know that there is such a worth- 
less, rhyming reprobate, as your humble sei^vant, 
still in the land of the living, though I can 
Ecarcely say, in the place of hope. I have xio 



news to tell you tliat will give nic any pleasure 
to mention or you to hear. 



And now for a grand cure ; the ship is on her 
way home that is to take me out to Jamaica ; 
and then, farewell dear old Scotland, and fare- 
well dear ungrateful Jean, for never, never will 
I sec you more. 

You will have heard that I am going to com- 
mence Poet in print ; and to-morrow my works 
go to the press. I expect it will be a volume of 
about two hundred pages — it is just the last fooi- 
ish action I intend to do; and then turn a wise 
man as fast as possible. 

Believe me to be, 

Dear Brice, 
Your friend and well-wisher. 



No. XI. 



TO MR. AIKEN 

(the GENTLEMAN TO WHOM THE COTTEr's 
SATURDAY NIGHT IS ADDRESSED.) 

SIR, Ayrshire, 178G. 

I WAS with Wilson, my printer, t'other day, 
and settled all our by -gone matters between us. 
After I had paid him all demands, I made him 
the otfer of the second edition, on the hazard of 
being paid out of ihn first and readiest, which 
he declines. By his account, tlie paper of a 
thousand copies would cost about twenty-seven 
pounds, and the printing about fifteen or six- 
teen : he offcus to agree to this for the printing, 
if I will advance for the paper ; but this you 
know, is out of my power ; so farewell hopes 
of a second edition till I grow richer ! — an 
epofcha which, I think, will arrive at the pay- 
ment of the British national debt. 

There is scarcely any thing hurts me so much 
in j^eing disappointed of my second edition, as 
not having it in my power to show my grati- 
tude to ]\Ir. Eallantyne, by publishing my poem 
of Tlie Brigs of Ayr. I would detest myself 
as a wretch, if I thought I were capable, in a 
very long life, of forgetting the honest, warm, 
and tender delicacy with which he enters into 
my interests. I am sometimes pleased with my- 
self in my grateful sensations ; but I believe, on 
the whole, I have very little merit in it, as mv 
gratitude is not a virtue, the consequence of re- 
flection, but sheerly the instinctive emotion of a 
heart too inattentive to allow worldly maxims 
and views to settle into selfish habits. 

I have been feeling all the various rotations 
and movements within, respecting the excise. 
There are many things plead strongly against it ; 
the uncertainty of getting soon into business, the 
consequences of my follies, which may perhaps 
make it impracticable for me to stay at home ; 



254 



BURNS' WORKS. 



and besides, I have for some time been pininp; 
under secret wrotchedncss, from causes whicb 
you pretty well know — the pang- of disyppoint- 
racnt, tbe sting of piide, with sonic wandering 
stabs of remorse, which never fail to settle on 
my vitals like vultures, when attention is not 
called away by the calls of society or the vaga- 
ries of the muse. Even in the hour of social 
mirth, my gaiety is the madness of an intoxica- 
ted criminal under the hands of the executioner. 
All these reasons urge me to go abroad ; and to 
all these reasons I have only one answer — the 
feelings of a father. This, in the present mood 
I am in, overbalances every thing that can be 
laid in the scale against it. 



You may perhaps think it an extravagant 
fancy, but it is a sentiment which strikes home 
to my very soul : though sceptical, in some 
points, of our cinrent belief, yet, I think, I have 
(jvery evidence for the reality of a life beyond 
the stinted bourne of our present existence ; if 
so, then how should I, in the presence of that 
tremendous Being, the Author of existence, how 
should I meet the reproaches of those who stand 
to me in the dear relation of children, whom I 
deserted in the smiling innocency of helpless in- 
fancy ? O, thou great unknown Power ! thou 
Almighty God ! v/ho hast lighted up reason in 
my breast, and blessed me with innnortality ! I 
have frequently wandered from that order and 
regularity necessary for the perfection of thy 
works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken 
me ! 



gre'sive struggle ; and that, however I might 
possess a warm heart and inoffensive manners 
(which last, by the bye, was rather more than 
I could well boast), still, more than these pas- 
sive qualities, there was something to be done. 
When all my school-fellows and youthful com- 
peers (those misguided few excepted, who join- 
ed, to use a Gentoo phrase, the hallachores of 
the human race), were striking off with eager 
hope and earnest intent on some one or other 
of the many paths of busy life, I was " stand- 
ing idle in the market place," or only left the 
chase of the butterfly from flower to flower, to 
hunt fancy from whim to whim. 



Since I wrote the foregoing sheet, I have 
seen something of the storm of mischief thick- 
ening over my folly-devoted head. Should you, 
my friends, my benefactors, be successful in 
your applications for me, perhaps it may not be 
in my power in that way to reap the fniit of 
your friendly eft"orts. What I have written in 
the preceding pages is the settled tenor of my 
present resolution; but should inimical cir- 
cumstances forbid me closing with your kind 
offer, or, enjoying it, only threaten to entail 
farther misery— 



To tell the truth, I have little reason for 
this last complaint, as the world, in general, 
has been kind to me, fully up to my deserts. 
I was, for some time past, fast getting into the 
pining distrustful snarl of the misanthrope. I 
saw myself alone, unfit for the struggle of life 
shrinking at every rising cloud in the chance- 
directed atmosphere of fortune, while, all de- 
fenceless, I looked about in vain for a cover 
It never occurred to me, at least never with the 
force it deserved, that this world is a busy 
scene, and man a creature destined for a pro- 



You see, Sir, that if to knoto one's errors 
were a probability of mending them, I stand a 
fair diance ; but, according to the reverend 
Westminster divines, though conviction must 
precede conversion, it is very far from always 

plying it.* 



No. XII. 



TO MRS. OUiNLOP, OF DUNLOP. 

MADAM, Ayrshire, 1786. 

I AM truly sorry I was not at home yesterday, 
when I was so much honoured with your order 
for my copies, and incomparably more by the 
handsome compliments you are pleased to pay 
my poetic abilities. I am fully persuaded that 
there is not any class of mankind so feelingly 
alive to the titillations of applause as the sons 
of Parnassus ; nor is it easy to conceive how 
the heart of the poor bard dances with rapture, 
when those whose character in life gives them 
a right to be polite judges, honour him with 
their approbation. Had you been thoroughly 
acquainted with me. Madam, you coidd not 
have touched ray darling heart-chord more 
sweetly than by noticing my attempts to cele- 
brate your illustrious ancestor, the Saviour of 
his Country. 

" Gi-eafc, patriot hero ! ill-requited chief." 

The first book I met with in my early years, 
which I perused with pleasure, was The Life 
of Hannibal : the next was The History of 
Sir William Wallace : for several of ray ear- 
lier years I had few other authors ; and many a 
solitary hour have I stole out, after the labori- 
ous vocations of the day, to shed a tear over 
their glorious but unfortunate stories. In those 
boyish days I remember in particular being 



* Tliis letter was evidently written under the dis- 
tress of niiiiil occasioned by our Poet's separation from 
Mrs. Burns. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



255 



struck with that part of Wallace's story 'where 
these lines occur — 

*' Sync to the Leglen wood, when it was late, 
To make a silent and a safe retreat." 

I chose a fine summer Sunday, the only day 
my line of life allowed, and walked half a dozen 
of miles to pay my respects to the Lcgleu wood, 
with as much devout enthusiasm as ever pil- 
grim did to Loretto ; and, as I explored every 
den and dell where I could suppose my heroic 
countryman to have lodged, I recollect (for 
even then I was a rhymer), that my heart glow- 
ed with a wish to he ahle to make a song on 
him in some measure e«iual to his merits. 



No. XIII. 
TO MRS. STEWART, OF STAIR. 

MADAM, 1786. 

The hurry of my preparations for going a- 
broad has hindered me from performing my pro- 
mise so soon as I intended. I have here sent you 
a parcel of songs, &c. which never made their 
appearance, except to a friend or two at most. 
Perhaps some of them may be no great enter- 
tainment to you : but of that I am far from be- 
ing an adequate judge. The song to the tune 
of Ettrich, Hanks, you will easily see the impro- 
priety of exposing much even in manuscript. 
I think, myself, it has some merit, both as a to- 
lerable description of one of Nature's sweetest 
scenes, a July evening, and one of the finest 
pieces of Nature's workmanship, the finest in- 
deed we know any thing of, an amiable, beauti- 
ful young woman ;» but I have no common 
friend to procure me that permission, without 
which I would not dare to spread the copy. 

I am quite aware. Madam, what task the 
world 'vould assign me in this letter. The ob- 
scure bard, when any of the great condescend 
to take uotice of him, should heap the altar with 
the incehsc of flattery. Their high ancestry, 
their own great and godlike (qualities and actions, 
should be recounted with the most exaggerated 
description. This, JMadam, is a task for which 
I am altogether unfit. Besides a certain dis- 
qualifying pride of heart, I know nothing of 
your connections in life, and have no access to 
where your real character is to be found — tjie 
company of your compeers : and more, I am a- 
fpiid that even the most refined adulation is by 
no means the road to your good opinion. 

One feature of your character I shall over 
with grateful pleasure remember — the reception 
I got, when I had tlie honour of waiting on, you 
at Stair. I am httle acquainted with politeness ; 
but I know a good deal of bent.-volonce of tem- 
per and goodness of heart. Surely, did those in 
exalted stations know how happy they co\ild 
make some classes of their infenors by conde- 



Mbs A- 



scension and alTability, they would never stand 
so high, measuring out with every look the 
height of their elevation, but condescend as 
sweetly as did Mrs. Stewart of Stair.* 



No. XIV. 
DR. BLACKLOCK 

TO 

THE REVEREND MR. G. LOWRIE. 

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, 

I OUGHT to have acknowledged your favour 
long ago, not only as a testimony of your kind 
remembrance, but as it gave me an opportunity of 
sharing one of the finest, and, perhaps, one of the 
most genuine entertainments, of which the human 
mind is susceptible. A number of avocations re- 
tarded my progress in reading the poems ; at last, 
however, I have finished that pleasing perusal. 
Many instances have I seen of Nature's force and 
benefice^nce exerted under numerous and formid- 
able disadvantages ; but none equal to that with 
which you have been kind enough to present me. 
There is a pathos and delicacy in his serious 
poems, a. vein of wit and humour in those of a 
more festive turn, which cannot be too mucli 
admired, nor too warmly approved ; and I think 
I shall never open the book without feeling my 
astonishment renewed and increased. It was my 
wish to have expressed my approbation in verse ; 
but whether from declining life, or a temporary 
depression of spirits, it is at present out of my 
power to accomplish that agreeable intention. 

Mr. Stewart, Professor of Morals in this Uni- 
versity, had formerly read me three of the poems, 
and I had desired him to get my name inserted 
among the subscribers ; but whether this was 
done, or not, I never could learn. I have little 
intercourse with Dr. Blair, but will take care 
to have the poems communicated to liim by the 
intervention of some mutual friend. It has beeu 
told me by a gentleman, to whom I showed the 
performances, and who sought a copy with dili- 
gence and ardour, that the whole impression is 
already exhausted. It were, therefore, much to 
be wished, for the sake of the young man, that 
a second edition, more numerous than the fornuT, 
could immediately be printed ; as it aj)pcars cer- 
tain that its intrinsic merit, and the exertion of 
the author's friends, might give it a more uni- 
versal circulation than any thing of the kind 
which has been published within my memory, j- 



* The song enclosed is that given in the Life of our 
Poet; beginning, 

'Twas e'en — the dewy fields were green, &f. 
T>ie reader will perceive that this is the letter 
which produced the dcteniiinalion of our Bard to give 
up his scheme of going to the West Indies, and to try 
the fate of a new edition of his poems in Edinburgh. 
A cojiy of this letter was sent by Mr. I,owric to Mr. O. 
Hamilton, and by him communicated tolJurns, among 
wliobo paper's it was found. 



256 



BURNS' WORKS. 



No. XV. 

FROM SIR JOHN WHITEFORD. 

SIR, Edinburgh, ith Decemher, 178G. 

I RECEIVED your letter a few days ago. I do 
not pretend to much interest, but what I have 
I shall be ready to exert in procuring the attain- 
ment of any object you have in view. Your 
character as a man (forgive my reversing your 
order), as well as a poet, entitle you, I think, to 
the assistance of every inhabitant of Ayrshire. 
I have been told you wished to be made a gau- 
ger ; I submit it to your consideration, whether 
it would not be more desirable, if a sura could 
be raised by subscription, for a second edition of 
your poems, to lay it out in the stocking of a 
small farm. I am persuaded it would be a line 
of life, much more agreeable to your feelings, and 
in the end more satisfactory. When you have 
considered this, let me know, and whatever you 
determine upon, I will endeavour to promote as 
far as my abilities will permit. With compli- 
ments to my fiiend the doctor, I am, 

Your friend and well-wisher, 
JOHN WHITEFORD. 

P. S. — I shall take it as a favour when you 
at any time send me a new production. 



No. XVI. 

FROM THE REV. MR. G. LOWRIE. 

DEAR SIR, 22d December, 178G. 

I LAST week received a letter from Dr. Black- 
lock, in which he expresses a desire of seeing 
you. I write this to you, that you may lose no 
time in waiting upon him, should you not yet 
have seen him. 



I rejoice to hear, from all corners, of your 
rising fame, and I wish and expect it may tower 
still higher by the new publication. But, as a 
friend, I warn you to prepare to meet with your 
share of detraction and envy — a train that al- 
ways accompany great men. For your comfort, 
I am in great hopes that the number of your 
friends and admirers will increase, and that you 
have some chance of ministerial, or even » * * * 
patronage. Now, my friend, such rapid success 
is very uncommon : and do you think yourself 
Id no danger of suflfering by applause and a full 
purse ? Remember Solomon's advice, which he 
spoke from experience, " stronger is he that con- 
quers," &c. Keej) fast hold of your runU sim- 
plicity and purity, like Telemachus, by Mentor's 
aid, in Calypso's Isle, or even in that of Cyprus. 
I hope 7J0U have also Minerva with you, I 
need not tell you how nmch a modest diffidence 
and invincible temperance adorn the most shin- 



ing talents, and elevate the mind, and exalt and 
refine the nnaginati.on even of a poet. 

I hope you will not imagine I speak from 
suspicion or evil report. I assure you I speak 
from love and good report, and good opinion, 
and a strong desire to see you shiue as much in 
the sunshine as you have done in the shade, and 
in the practice as you do in the theory of virtue. 
This is my prayer, in return for your elegant 
composition in verse. All here join in compli- 
ments, and good wishes for your further pros- 
perity. 



No. XVII. 
TO GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. 

MAUCHLINE. 

Edmburgh, Dec, 7, 1786. 

HONOURED SIR, 

I HAVE paid every attention to your com- 
mands, but can only say what perhaps you will 
have heard before this rea",h you, that Muir- 
kirklands were bought by a John Gordon, W. S. 
but for whom I know not ; Mauchlands, Haugh 
Mlln, &c. by a Frederick Fotheriugham, sup- 
posed to be for Ballochmyle Laird, and Adam- 
hill and Shawood were bought for Oswald's 
folks. — This Is so imperfect an account, and will 
be so late ere it reach you, that were it not to 
discharge my conscience I would not trouble 
you with it ; but after all my diligence I could 
make it no sooner nor better. 

For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of be- 
coming as eminent as Thomas a Kempis or John 
Buuyan ; and you may expect henceforth to see 
my birth-day inserted among the wonderful 
events, in the poor Robin's and Aberdeen Al- 
manacks, along with the Black Monday, and the 

battle of Bothwell Bridge My lord Glencairn 

and the Dean of Faculty, Mx. H. Erslme, have 
taken me under their wing ; and by all proba- 
bility I shall soon be the tenth worthy, and the 
eighth wise man of the world. Through my 
lord's influence it is inserted in the records of 
the Caledonian hunt, that they universally, one 
and all, subscribe for the secont' edition. — My 
subscription bills come out to-morrow, and you 
shall have some of them next post. — I have met 
in Mr. Dalrymple, of Orangefieid, what Solomon 
emphatically calls, " A friend that sticketh 
closer than a brother," — The warmth with 
which he interests himself in my affairs is of the 
same enthusiastic kind which you, Mr. Aiken, 
and the few patrons that took notice of my ear- 
lier poetic days, shewed for the poor unlucky 
devil of a poet. 

I always remember Mrs. Hamilton and Miss 
Kennedy in my poetic prayers, but you both in 
prose and verse. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



267 



May caulJ ne'er catch you but * a hap, 
Nor hunger but in plenty's lap ! 
, Amen ! 

111, 

I..,' 

No. XVIII. 

TO DR. M'KENZIE, Mauchlike. 

(enclosing him the extempore verses on 
dining with loud daer.) 

DEAR SIR, Wednesday Morning. 

I NEVER spent an afternoon amona; great 
folks with half that ])lcasure as when, in com- 
pany with you, I had the honour of paying my 
devoirs to that plain, honest, worthy man, the 
professor. f I would be delighted to see him 
perform acts .of kindness and friendsliip, though 
I were not the object ; he does it with such a 
grace. I think his character, divided into ten 
parts, stands thus — four parts Socrates — four 
parts Nathaniel — and two parts Shakespeare's 
Brutus. 

The foregoing verses were really extempore, 
but a li'tle coriected since. They may enter- 
tain you a little with the help of that partiality 
with which you arc so good as favour the per- 
formances of 

Dear Sir, 

Your very humble Servant, 



No. XIX. 
TO JOHN BALLANTINE, Esq. Banker, 
Ayr. 
Edinbtirgh, } 3th Dec. I78G. 

MY HONOURED FRIEND, 

I WOULD not write you till I could have it 
in my power to give you some account of my- 
self and my matters, which by the bye is often 

no easy task I arrived here on Tuesday was 

se'nnight, and have suffered ever since I came 
to town with a miserable head-ache and 
stomach complaint, but am now a good deal 
better. — I have found a worthy warm friend in 
Mr. Dalrymple, of Orangefield, who introduced 
me to Lord Glencairn, a man whose worth and 
brotherly kindness to me, I shall remember 
when time .shall be no more. — By his interest it 
is passed in the Caledonian hunt, and entered 
in their books, that they are to take each a 
copy of the second edition, for which they are 

to pay one guinea 1 have been introduced to 

a good many of the Noblesse, but my avowed 
patrons and patronesses are, the Duchess of 



Gordon — The Countess of Glencairn, with my 
Lord, and Lady Betty* — The Dean of Faculty 
— Sir John Whitefoord. — I have likewise warm 
friends among the literati ; Professors Stewart, 
Blair, and Mr. JM'Kenzie. — the Man of Feeling,, 
— An unknown hand left ten guineas for the 
Ayrshire bard with ]\Ir. Sibbald, which I got. 
— I .since have discovered my generous unknown 
friend to be Patrick Miller, Esq. brother to the 
Justice Clerk ; and drank a glass of claret with 
him by invitation at his own house yesternight. 
I am nearly agreed with Creech to print my 
book, and I suppose I Avill begin on iNIonday. I 
will send a subscription bill or two, next ))ost ; 
when I intend writing my first kind patton, 
Mr. Aiken. I saw his son to-day and he is 
very well. 

Dugald Stewart, and some of my learned 
friends, put me in the ])eriodical paper called 
the Lounger,f a copy of which I here enclose 
you — I was, Sir, when I was tir^t honoured with 
vour notice, too obscure ; now I tremble lest I 
should be ruined by being dragged too suddenly 
into the glare of polite and leained observation. 

I shall certainly, my ever honoured patron, 
write you an account of my every step ; and 
better health and more spirits may enable me to 
make it something better than this stupid mat- 
ter of fact epistle. 

I have the honour to be. 
Good Sir, 
Your ever grateful humble Servant. 

If any of my friends write me, my direction 
is, care of Mr. Creech, bookseller. 



* " But" is frequently used for 
without clothing. 
t Professor Dugald Stewart. 



without ;" i. e. 



No. XX. t 
TO MR. WILLIAM CHALMERS, 

Writer, Ayr. 

Ed'mhuryh, Bee. 27, 1786. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I CONFESS I have sinned the siu for which 
there is hardly any forgiveness — ingratitude to 
friendship — in not writing you sooner ; but of 
all men living, I had intended to send you aa 
entertaining letter ; and by all the plodding, 
stupid powers, that in nodding, conceited ma- 
jesty, preside over the dull routine of business — - 
A heavily-solemn oath tliis ! — I am, and have 
been, ever since I came to Edinburgh, as unfit 
to write a letter of humour, as to write a com- 
mcutaiy on the Revelation of St. John the Di- 
vine, who was banished to the Isle of Patmos, 
by the cruel and bloody Domitian, son to Ves- 
pasian and brother to Titus, both emperors of 
Rome, and who was himself an euipetor, and 



* I.ady Betty Cunningham. 

f The i)aper here .illuded to, wa.> written by Mr. 
M'Kenzie, the celebrated author of the Man of Feel« 
ing. 

X This letter is now presented entire. 
53 



258 



BQRNS' WORKS. 



raised the second or third persecntion, I forgot 
which, against the Christians, and after throw- 
ing the said Apostle John, brother to the Apostle 
James, commonly called James the greater, to 
distinguish him from another James, who was, 
on some account or other, known by the name 
of James the less, after throwing him into a 
caldron of boiling oil, from which he was mi- 
raculously preserved, he banished the poor son 
of Zebedee, to a desert island in the Archipe- 
lago, where he was gifted with the second sight, 
and saw as many wild beasts as I have seen 
since I came to Edinburgh ; which, a circum- 
stance not very uncommon in story-telling, 
brings me back to where I set out. 

To make you some amends for what, before 
you reach this paragraph, you will have suffer- 
ed ; I enclose you two poems I have carded and 
spun since I past Glenbuck. 

One blank in the address to Edinburgh — 
•' Fair B ," is heavenly Miss Burnet, daugh- 
ter to Lord Monboddo, at whose house I have 
had the honour to be more than once. 

There has not been any thing nearly like her, 
in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and 
goodness, the Great Creator has formed, since 
Milton's Eve on the first day of her existence. 

My direction is — care of Andrew Bruce, mer- 
chant, Bridge-Street. 



LETTERS, 1787. 

No. XXI. 
TO JOHN BALLANTINE, Esq. 

Edinburgh, Jan. 14, 1787. 

MY HONOURED FRIEND, 

It gives me a secret comfort to observe in 
myself that I am not yet so far gone as Willie 
Gaw's skate, " past redemption ;"* for I have 
still this favourable symptom of grace, that when 
my conscience, as in the case of this letter, tells 
me I am leaving something undone that I ought 
to do, it teazes me eternally till I do it. 

I am still " dark as was chaos" in respect to 
futurity. My generous friend, ]\Ir. Patrick Mil- 
ler, has been talking with me about a lease of 
some farm or other in an estate called Dalswin- 
ton, which he has lately bought near Dumfries. 
Some life-rented embittering recollections whis- 
per me that I will be happier any where than 
in my old neighbourhood, but Mr. Miller is no 
judge of land ; and though I dare say he means 
to favour me, yet he may give me, in his opi- 
nion, an advantageous bargain, that may ruin 
me. I am to take a tour by Dumfries as I re- 
turn, and have promised to meet Mr. JMiller on 
his lands some time in May. 



I went to a Mason-lodge yesternight, where 
the most Worshipful- Grand Master Charters, 
and all the Grand-Lodge of Scotland visited. — 
The meeting was numerous and elegant ; all the 
different Lodges about town were present, in all 
their pomp. The Grand Master, who presided 
with great solemnity and honour to himself as a 
gentleman and Mason, among other general 
toasts gave " Caledonia, and Caledonia's Bard, 

Brother B ," which rung through the whole 

assembly with multiplied honours and repeated 
acclamations. As I had no idea such a thing 
would happen, I was downright thunder-struck, 
and trembling in every nerve made the best re- 
turn in my power. Just as I had finished, some 
of the grand officers said, so loud that I could 
hear, with a most comforting accent, " Very 
well indeed !" which set me something to rights 
again. 



I have to-day corrected my 162d page. My 
best good wishes to Mr. Aiken. 
I am ever. 
Dear Sir, 
Your much indebted humble Servant- 



♦ This is one of a great number of old saws that 
Burns, when a lad, had picked up from hisinothcr, 
of which the good old v/oniau had a vast collection. 



No. xxn. 



TO THE EARL OF EGLINTON. 



MY LOUD, Edinburgh, Jan. 178 7. 

As I have but slender pretensions to philoso- 
phy, I cannot rise to the exalted ideas of a cl- 
tizeri of the world ; but have all those national 
prejudices which, I believe, glow peculiarly 
strong in the breast of a Scotchman. There is 
scarcely any thing to which I am so feelingly 
alive, as the honour and welfare of my country ; 
and, as a poet, I have no higher enjoyment than 
singing her sons and daughters. Fate had cast 
my station in the veriest shades of life ; but ne- 
ver did a heart pant more ardently than mine, 
to be distinguished ; though, till very lately, I 
looked in vain on every side for a ray of light. 
It is easy, then, to guess how much I was gra- 
tified with the countenance and approbation of 
one of my country's most illustrious sons, whea 
Mr. Wauchope called on me yesterday, on the 
part of your lordship. Your munificence, my 
lord, certainly deserves my very grateful ac- 
knowledgments ; but your patronage is a boun- 
ty peculiarly suited to my feelings. I am not 
master enough of the etiquette of life to know 
whether there be not some impropriety in 
troubling your lordship with ray thanks ; but 
my heart whispered me to do it. From the 
emotions of my inmost soul I do it. Selfish in 
gratitude, I hope, I am incapable of; and mer- 
cenary servility, I trust, I shall ever have st> 
much honest pride as to detest. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



259 



No. XXIIL 
TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

MAnAJi, JEdhihurgh, 15th Jan. 1787. 

YouKS of tlie 9th current, which I am this 
inoineut honoured with, is a deep reproach to 
me for ungrateful neglect. I will tell you the 
real truth, for I am miserably awkward at a 
fib : I wished to have written to Dr. JMoore 
before I wrote to you ; but though, every day 
since I received yours of December 3()th, the 
idea, the wish to write him, has constantly; 
pressed on my thoughts, yet I could not for my 
soul set about it. I know his fame and charac- 
ter, and I am one of " the sons of little men." 
To write him a mere matter-of-fact affair, like 
a merchant's order, would be disgracing the lit- 
tle character I have ; and to write the author 
of The View of Societij and Manners a letter 
of sentiment — I declare svery artery runs cold 
at the thought. I shall try, however, to write 
him to-morrow or next day. His kind interpo- 
sition in my behalf I have already experienced, 
as a gentleman waited on me the other day, on 
the part of Lord Eglinton, with ten guineas by 
way of subscription for two copies of my next 
edition. 

The word you object to in the mention I 
have made of my glorious countryman and your 
immortal ancestor, is indeed borrowed from 
Thomson ; but it does not strike me as an im- 
proper epitliet. I distrusted my own judgment 
on your finding fault with it, and applied for 
the opinion of some of the literati here, who 
honour me with their critical strictures, and 
they all allow it to be pro})er. The song you 
ask I cannot recollect, and I have not a copy of 
it. I have not composed any thing on the great 
Wallace, except what you have seen in print, 
and the enclosed, which T will print in this edi- 
tion. • You will see I have mentioned some 
others of the name. When I composed my 
"F'/.s/oM, long ago, T had attempted a description 
of Kyle, of which the additional stanzas are a 
part, as it originally stood. ]My heart glows 
with a wish to be able to do justice to the me- 
rits of the Saviour of his Country, which, 
sooner or later, I shall at least attempt. 

You are afraid I shall grow intoxicated with 
my prosperity as a poet. Alas ! Madam, I 
know myself and the world too well. I do not 
mean any airs of atfected modesty ; I am wil- 
ling to believe that my abilities deserved some 
notice ; but in a most enlightened, informed 
age and nation, when poetry is and has been 
the study of men of the first natural genius, 
aided with all the powers of polite learuiug, 
polite books, and polite company — to be drag- 
ged forth to the full glare of learned and polite 
observation, with all my imperfections of awk- 



ward rusticity and crude unpolished ideas on my 
head — 1 assure you, Madfim, I do not dissemble 
when I tell you I tremble for the consequences. 
The novelty of a poet in my obscure situation, 
without any of those advantages which are 
reckoned necessary for that character, at least 
at this time of day, has raised a partial tide of 
public notice, which has borne me to a height 
where I am absolutely, feelingly certain, my 
abilities arc inadequate to support me ; and too 
surely do I see that time wliea the same tide 
will leave me, and recede, perhaps, as far below 
the mark of truth. 



Your patronizing me, and interesting your- 
self in my fame and character as a poet, I re- 
joice in ; it exalts me in my own idea ; and 
whether you can or cannot aid me in my sub- 
scription is a trifle. Has a paltry subscrii)tion- 
bili any charms to the heart of a bard, compar- 
ed with the patronage of the descendant of the 
immortal Wallace ? 



* Stanzas in the Vision, beginning third stanza, 
" By stately tower or palace fair," and ending witli the 
first duaii. 



No. XXIV. 

TO DR. MOORE. 

SIR, 1767. 

Mrs. Dunlop has been so kind as to send me 
extracts of letters she has liad from you, where 
you do the rustic bard the honour of noticing- 
him and his works. Those who have felt the 
anxieties and solicitudes of authorship, can only 
know what pleasure it gives to be noticed in such 
a manner by judges of the first character. Your 
criticisms, Sir, I receive with reverence ; only, 
I am sorry they mostly came too late ; a peccant 
passage or two, that I would certainly have al- 
tered, were gone to the press. 

The hope to be admired for ages is. In by far 
the greater part of those even who are authors 
of repute, an unsubstantial dream. For my part, 
my first ambition was, and still my strongest 
wish is, to j)lease my compeers, the rustic in- 
mates of the hamlet, while ever changing lati- 
guage and manners shall allow me to bo relished 
and understood. I am very willing to admit 
that I have some poetical abilities ; and as few, 
if any writers, either moral or poetical, are inti- 
mately acquainted with the classes of mankind 
among whom I have chiefly mingled, I may have 
seen mcu and manners in a diflerent phasis from 
what is connnon, which may assist originality 
of thought. Still I know very well the novelty 
of my character has by far the greatest share in 
the learned and polite notice I have lately had ; 
and in a linguage where Pope and ChurcluU 
have raised the laugh, and Shenstone and (iray 
drawn the tear — where Thomson and iJeattie 
have painted the landscape, and Lyttleton aiftl 
Collins (lescribed the heart, I am not vain e- 
uough to hope for dLstinguished poetic fame. 



260 



BURNS' WORKS. 



No. xxv. 
FllOM DR. MOORE. 

SIR, Clifford Street, Jan, 23, 17S7. 

I iiAVK just received your letter, by wliich I 
find I have reasoa to complaiu of my friend 
]\Iis. Duulop for transmitting to you extracts 
from my letters to her, by much too freely and 
too carelessly written for your perusal. I must 
forgive her, however, in consideration of her 
good intention, 'as you will forgive me, I hope, 
for the freedom I use with certain expressions, 
in consideration of my admiration of the poems 
In general. If I may judge of the author's dis- 
position from his works, with all the other good 
qualities of a poet, he has not the irritable tem- 
per ascribed to that race of men by one of their 
own number, whom you have the happiness to 
resemble in ease and curious felicity of expres- 
sion. Indeed the poetical beauties, however 
original and brilliant, and lavishly scattered, 
are not all I admire in your works ; the love of 
your native country, that feeling sensibility to 
all the objects of humanity, and the independent 
spirit which breathes through the whole, give 
me a most favourable impression of the poet, 
and have made me often regret that I did not 
see the poems, the certain effect of which would 
have been my seeing the author last summer, 
when I was longer in Scotland than I have been 
for many years. 

I rejoice very sincerely at the encouragement 
you receive at Edinburgh, and I think you pe- 
culiarly fortunate in the patronage of Dr. Blair, 
who, I am informed. Interests himself very much 
for you. I beg to be remembered to him : no- 
body can have a warmer regard for that gentle- 
man than I have, which, independent of the 
worth of his character, would be kept alive by 
the memory of our common friend, the late Mr. 
George B e. 

Before I received your letter, I sent enclosed 
in a letter to , a sonnet by I\liss Wil- 
liams, a young poetical lady, which she wrote 
on reading your IMouutaiu-Daisy ; perhaps it 
may not displease you. * 

1 have been trying to add to the number of 
your subscribers, but I find many of my ac- 
quaintance are already among them. I have 
only to add, that with every sentiment of es- 
teem, and most cordial good wishes, 
I am. 

Your obedient humble servant, 
J. MOORE. 



* The sonnet is as follows : — . 

Whilk soon the garden's flaunting flowers de- 
cay, 

And scattered on the earth neglected lie, 
The " Mountain-Daisy," cherished by the ray 

A poet drew from heaven, shall never die. 
Ah, like that louely flower the j)i)et rose ! 

'Alid penury's bare soil aud bitter gale ; 



He felt each storm that on the mountain blows, 

Nor ever knew the shelter of the vale. 
By genius in her native vigour nurst. 

On nature with impassion'd look he gazed ; 
Then through the cloud of adverse fortune burst 

Indignant, and in light unburrow'd blazed. 
Scotia ! from rude affliction shield thy bard. 

His heaven-taught numbers Fame herself will 
guard. 



No. XXVI. 
TO DR. MOORE. 

SIR, JEdinhurgh, 1 5th Feb. 1787.. 

Pardon my seeming neglect in delaying so 
long to acknowledge the honour you have done 
me, in your kind notice of me, January 23d. 
Not many months ago, I knew no other em- 
ployment than following the plough, nor could 
boast any thing higher than a distant acquaint- 
ance with a country clergyman. Mere great- 
ness never embarrasses me : I have nothing to 
ask from the great, and I do not fear their 
judgment ; but genius, polished by learning, 
and at its proper point of elevation in the eye of 
the world, this of late I frequently meet with, 
and tremble at its approach. I scorn the aflFec- 
tation of seeming modesty to cover self-conceit. 
That I have some merit I do not deny ; but I 
see, with frequent wringings of heart, that the 
novelty of my character, and the honest national 
prejudice of my countrymen, have borne me to 
a height altogether untenable to my abilities. 

For the honour Miss W. has done me, please. 
Sir, return her In ray name, my most grateful 
thanks. I have more than once thought of pay- 
ing her in kind, but have hitherto quitted the 
Idea in hopeless despondency. I had never be- 
fore heard of her ; but the other day I got her 
poems, which, for several reasons, some belong- 
ing to the head, and othei-s the offspring of the 
heart, give me a great deal of pleasure. I have 
little pretensions to critic lore : there are, I 
think, two characteristic features in her poetry 
— the unfettered wild flight of native genius, 
and the querulous, sombre tenderness of " time- 
settled sorrow." 

I only know what pleases me, often without 
being able to tell why. 



No. XXVII. 
TO JOHN BALLANTINE, Esq. Ayr. 
Edinburgh, Feb. 24, 1787. 

MY HONOURKD FRIEND, 

I wii.i- soon be with you now in guid black 
prent ; in a week or ten days at farthest — 1 am 
obliged, against my own wish, to print sub- 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



261 



sci-ibers' names, so if any of my Ayr friends 
have subscriptiou bills, they must l)e sent in to 

Creedi directly I am getting my jihiz done by 

au eminent engraver ; and if it cau be ready in 
time, I will apj)ear in my book looking like other 
fools, to my title page. * 

I have the honour to be. 

Ever your grateful, &c. 



No. XXVIII. 
FROxAI DR. MOORE. 

Clifford Street, 2Sth Feb. 1787. 

DEAR SIR, 

Your letter of the 13th gave me a great deal 
of pleasure. It is not surprising that you im- 
prove in correctness and taste, considering where 
you have been for some time past. And I dare 
swear there is no danger of your admitting any 
polish which might weaken the vigour of your 
native powers. 

I am glad to perceive that you disdain the 
nauseous aifectation of decrying your own merit 
as a poet — an affectation which is displayed with 
most ostentation by those who have the greatest 
share of self-conceit, and which only adds unde- 
ceiving falsehood to disgusting vanity. For you 
to deny the merit of your poems would be ar- 
raigning the fixed opinion of the public. 

As the new edition of my Vieio of Societij 
is not yet ready, I have sent you the former 
edition, which, I beg you will accept as a small 
mark of my esteem. It is sent by sea, to the 
care of iNIr. Creech ; and, along with these four 
volumes for yourself, I have also sent my Medi- 
cal Sketches, in one volume, for my friend INIrs. 
IJuolop of Dunlop : this you will be so obliging 
as to transmit, or if you chance to pass soon by 
Dunlop, to give to her. 

I am happy to hear that your subscription is 
so ample, and shall rejoice at every piece of good 
fortune that befalls you : for you are a very 
great favourite in my family ; and this is a 
higher compliment than perhaps you are aware 
of. It includes almost all the professions, and 
of course is a proof that your writings are adapt- 
ed to various tastes and situations. INIy young- 
est son who is at Winchester school, writes to 
me that he is translating some stanzas of your 
Hallowe'en into Latin verse, for the benefit of 
his comrades. This union of taste partly pro- 
ceeds, no doubt, from the cement of Scottish 
partialitj', with which they are all somewhat 
tinctured. Even i/our translator, who left Scot- 



land too early 
without it. 



in life for recollection, is not 



I remain, with greatest sincerity, 
Your obedient servant, 

J. MOORE. 



* This portrait is engraved V)y Mr. Bcugo, an artist 
who well merits the cnithet bestowed oil him by the 
poet, after a picture of Mr. Nasniyth, which lie paint- 
ed con amove, and liberally presented to Burns. This 
picture is of the cabinet size. 



No. XXIX. 
TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 

MY LORD, Edinhuryh, 1787. 

I WANTED to purchase a profile of your lord- 
ship, which I was told was to be got in town ; 
but I am truly sorry to see that a blundering 
painter has spoiled a " human fece divine." 
The enclosed stanzas I intended to have written 
below a picture or profile of your lordship, could 
I have been so happy as to procure one with any 
thing of a likeness. 

As I will soon return to my shades, I wanted 
to have something like a material object for my 
gratitude ; I wanted to have it in my power to 
say to a friend, There is my noble patron, my 
generous beinefactor. Allow me, my lord, to 
publish these verses. I conjure your lordshij) 
by the honest throe of gratitude, by the gene- 
rous wish of benevolence, by all the powers and 
feelings which compose the magnanimous mind, 
do not deny me this petition.* I owe to your 
lordship ; and what has not in some other in- 
stances always been the case with me, the weighs 
of the obligation Is a pleasing load. I trust, 
have a heart as independent as your lordship's^ 
than which I can say nothing more : and 
would not be beholden to favours that woulA 
crucify my feelings. Your dignified charactet 
in life, and manner of supporting that character 
are flattering to my ])ride ; and I would be jea- 
lous of the purity of my grateful attachment, 
where I was under the patronsge of one of the 
much favoured sons of fortune. 

Almost every poet has celebrated his patrons, 
particularly when they Vrere names dear to fame, 
and illustrious in their country ; allow me, then, 
my lord, if you think the verses have Intrinsic 
merit, to tell the world how much I have the 
honour to be 

Your lordship's highly indebted, 
And ever grateful humble servant 



* It docs not appear that the Earl granted this re- 
quest, nor have the verses alluded to been found 
among the MSS. 



^62 



BURNS' WORKS. 



No. XXX. 
TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN. 

MY l.OllD, 

The honour your loitlship haa done me, by 
your notice and advice in yours of the 1st in- 
stant, I shall ever gratetully remember : 

" Praise from thy lips 'tis miue with joy to 

boast, 
They best can give It who deserve it most." 

Your lordship touches the darling chord of 
my heart, when you advise me to fire my muse 
at Scottish story and Scottish scenes. I wish 
for nothing more than to make a leisurely pil- 
fi^rimage through my native country ; to sit and 
muse ou those once hard -contended fields, where 
Caledonia, rejoicing, saw her bloody lion borne 
through broken ranks to victory and fame ; and, 
catching the inspiration, to pour the deathless 
names in song. But, my lord, in the midst of 
these enthusiastic reveries, a long-visaged, dry, 
moral-looking phantom strides across my imagi- 
nation, and pronounces these emphatic words, 
" I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence." 



This, my lord, is unanswerable. I must re- 
turn to my humble station, and woo my rustic 
muse in my wonted way at the plough-tail. 
Still, my lord, while the drops of life warm my 
heart, gratitude to that dear -loved country in 
which I boast my birth, and gratitude to those 
her distinguished sons, who have honoured me 
so much with their patronage and approbation, 
shall, while stealing through my humble shades, 
ever distend my bosom, and at times draw 
forth the swelling tear. 



No. XXXI. 

Ext. Property in favour of Mk, Robert 
Burns, to erect and keep up a Headstone in 
memory of Poet Fekcusson, 1787. 

Session-house, within the Kirk of Ca- 
nongate, the twenty-second day of 
February f one thousand seoen hun- 
dred and eightij-seven years. 

Sederunt of the managers of the Kirk and Kirk- 
yard Funds of Canongate. 

Which day, the treasurer to the said funds 
produced a letter from Mr. Robert Burns, of 
date the sixth current, which was read, and 
appointed to be engrossed in their sederunt- 
book, and of which letter the tenor follows ; 
" To the Honourable Bailies of Canongate, 



Edinburgh. Gentlemen, I am sorry to be told 
that the remains of Robert Fergusson, the so 
justly celebrated poet, a man whose talents, for 
ages to come, will do honour to our Caledo- 
nian name, lie in your church-yard, among the 
ignoble dead, unnoticed and unknown. 

" Some memorial to direct the steps of the 
lovers of Scottish song, when they wish to shed 
a tear over the " narrow house," of the bard 
who is no more, is surely a tribute due to Fer- 
gusson's memory ; a tribute I wish to have the 
honour of payiug. 

" I petition you, then, Gentlemen, to permit 
me to lay a simple stone over his revered ashes, 
to remain an unalienable property to his death- 
less fame. I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, 
your very humble servant, (.s/c subscribitur), 
" ROBERT BURNS." 

Thereafter the said managers, in considera- 
tion of the laudable and disinterested motion 
of Mr. Burns, and the propriety of his request, 
did, and hereby do, unanimously grant power 
and liberty to the said Robert Burns to erect 
a headstone at the grave of the said Robert 
Fergusson, and to keep up and preserve the 
same to his n)emory in all time coming. Ex- 
tracted forth of the records of the managers, by 
William Spbott, Clerk. 



No. XXXII. 
TO 

MY DEAR SIR, 

You may think, and too jusHy, that I am a 
selfish ungrateful fellow, having received so 
many repeated instances of kindness from you, 
and yet never putting pen to paper to say — 
thank you ; but if you knew what a devil of a 
life my conscience has led me on that account, 
your good heart would think yourself too much 
avenged. By the bye, there is nothing in the 
whole frame of man which seems to me so 
unaccountable as that thing called conscience. 
Had the troublesome yelping cur powers effi- 
cient to prevent a mischief, he might be of 
use : but at the beginning of the business, his 
feeble efibrts are to the workings of passion as 
the infant frosts of an autumnal morning to the 
unclouded fervour of the rising sun : and no 
sooner are the tumultuous doings of the wicked 
deed over, than, amidst the bitter native con- 
sequences of folly, in the very vortex of our 
horrors, up starts conscience, and harrows us 
with the feelings of the d . 

I have enclosed you, by way of expiation, 
some verse and prose, that, if they merit a place 
in your truly entertaining miscellany, you are 
welcome to. The prose extract is literally as 
Mr. Sprott sent it me. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



2G3 



The Inscription on the Stone is as follows : 
HERE LIES ROBERT FERGUSSON, 

POET. 

,JSoni September 5th, 1151— Died, ICth October 1774. 

No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, 
" No storitd urn nor animated bust ;" 

This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way 
To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust. 

On the other side of the Stone is as follows : 

" By special grant of the IManagers to Robert 
Burns, who erected this stone, this burial-place 
is to remain for ever sacred to the memory of 
Robeit FtTgussou." 



No. XXXIII. 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER 
FROM 

Sth March, ] 787. 

I AM truly happy to know you have found a 

friend in ,• his patronage of you docs 

him great honour. He is truly a good man 
by fiir the best I ever knew, or, perhaps, ever 
shall know, in this world. But I must not 
speak all I think of him, lest I should be thought 
partial. 

So j'ou have obtained liberty from the magis- 
trates to erect a stone over Fergusson's grave ? 
I do not doubt it ; such things have been, as 
•Shakespeare says, •* in the olden time :" 

*' The poet's fate, is here in emblem shown, 
He abk'd for bread, and he received a stone." 

It is, I believe, upon poor Butler's tomb that 
this is written. But how many brothers of 
Parnassus, as well as poor Butler and poor Fer- 
gusson, have asked for bread, and been served 
•with the s^me sauce ! 

The magistrates gave you lihertij, did they ? 
O generous magistrates ! . . . . celebrated 
over the three kingdoms for his public spirit, 
gives a poor poet liberty to raise a tomb to a 
poor poet's memory ! — most generous ! . . . 
once ui)on a time gave that same poet the mighty 
sum of eighteen pence for a copy of his works. 
But then it must be considered that the poet was 
at this time absolutely starving, and besought 
his aid with all the earnestness of hunger ; and, 

over and above, he received a worth, at 

least one-third of the value, in exchange, but 
which, I believe the poet afterwards very un- 
gratefully exjjunged. 

Next week I hope to have the pleasure of 
seeing you in Edinburgh ; and as my stay wiL 
be for eight or ten days, I wish you or 



would take a snug, wcll-aircd bed-room for me, 
where J may have the; pleasure of seeing you 
over a morning tup of tea. But by all accounts, 
it will he a matter of some difficulty to see you 
at all, unless your company is bespoke a week 
before-hand. Tliere isa great nnnour here con- 
cerning your great intimacy with the Uuchess of 

, lind other ladies of distinction. I am 

really told that " cards to invite fly by thousands 
each night ;" and, if you had one, I suppose 
thei'e would also be *' Iwibes to vour old secre- 
tary. " It seems you are resolved to make hay 
while the sun shines, and avoid, if possible, the 

ftite of poor Fergusson, 

Quareiida pecunia primum est, virtus post num- 
mos, is a good maxim to thrive by : you seemed 
to despise it while in this country ; but proba- 
bly some philosopher in Edinburgh has taught 
you better sense. ^ 

Pray, are you yet engraving as well as print- 
ing ? — Are you yet seized 

" With itch of picture in the front, 
With bays of wicked rhyme upon't !" 

But I must give up this trifling, and attend 
to matters that more concern myself : so, as the 
Aberdeen wit says, adieu dryly, zoc sal drink 
phan we meet.* 



No. XXXIV. 
TO MR. JAMES CANDLISH, 

Student in Physic, College, Glasgow. 
Edinhnrgh, March 21, 17S7. 

MY EVER DEAR OLD ACQUAINTANCE, 

I WAS equally surprised and pleased at your 
letter ; tliough I dare say you will think by my 
delaying so long to write to you, that I am so 
drowned in the intoxication of good fortune as 
to be indifferent to old and once dear connec- 
tions. The truth is, I was determined to write 
a good letter, full of argument, amplification, 
erudition, and, as Bayes says, all that. I thought 
of it, and thought of it, but for my soul I can- 
not : and lest you should mistake the cause of 
my silence, I just sit down to tell you so. Don't 
give yourself credit though, that the strength of 
your logic scares me : the truth is, I never mean 
to meet you on that ground at all. You have 



* The above extract is from n letter of one of tlio 
ablest of our poet's correspondents, which contains 
someintciestinganealotes ot Fen^usson, that \vc shoulil 
have been happy to have iiistTieil, if they could have 
been authenticated. The writer is mistaken in suppos- 
ing the magistrates of Edinburgh had any share in the 
trar.saction resjwctir.g the niDnunicnt erected for Fer- 
gusson by our bard ; (his, it is evident, passed between 
Burns arid the Kirk Session of the Canoni^ate. Neither 
at Edinburgh, nor anywhere else, do magistrates usu- 
i'.Uy trouble themselves to inquire how the house of a 
poor poet is furnished, or how his grave is adorned. 



264, 



BURNS' WORKS. 



shewn me one thing, which was to be demon- 
strated ; that strong pride of reasouintr, with a 
little affectation of singularity", may mislead the 
best of hearts. I, likewise, since you and I 
were first acquainted, iu the i)ride of despising 
o-ld women's stories, ventured in " the daring 
path Spinosa trod ;" hut experience of the 
weakness, not the strength, of hunii^p powers, 
made me glad to grasp at revealed religion. 

I must stop, but don't impute my brevity to 
a wrong cause. I am still, in the Aj)ostle Paul's 
phrase, " The old man with his deeds" a< when 
we were sporting about the lady thorn. I shall 
be four weeks here yet, at least ; and so I shall 
expect to hear from you — welcome sense, wel- 
come nonsense. 

I am, with the warmest sincerity, 
My dear old friend. 

Yours, 



No. XXXV. 
TO THE SAME. 



MT DEAR. FRIEXD, 

If once I were gone from this scene of hurry 
and dissipation, I jsrouiise myself the pleasure 
of that correspondence being renewed which has 
been so long broken. At present 1 have time 
for nothing. Dissipation and business engross 
every moment. I am engaged in assisting an 
honest Scots enthusiast,* a friend of mine, who 
is an engraver, and has taken it into his head to 
publish a collection of all our songs set to music, 
of which the wouls and music are done by Scots- 
men. This, you will easily guess, is an under- 
taking exactly to my taste. I have collected, 
begged, borrowed, and stolen all the songs I 
could meet with. Pompej's Ghost, words and 
music, I beg from you immediately, to go into 
his second number : the first is already pub- 
lished. I shall shew you the first number when 
I see you in Glasgow, which will be in a fort- 
night or less. Do be so kind as send me the 
song in a day or two : you cannot imagine how 
much it will oblige me. 

Direct to me at Mr. W. Cruikshank's, St. 
James's Square, New Town, Edinburgh. 



No. XXXVI. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

MADAM, Edinburgh, 3Iarch 22, 17S7. 

I READ your letter with watery eyes, A lit- 
tle, very little while ago, / had scarce a friend 
hut the stubborn pride of my own bosom ; now 
I am distinguished, patronized, befriended by 
you. Your friendly advices, I will not give 



• Johnson, flie publisher of the Scots Musical Museum- 



them the cold name of criticisms, I receive with 
reverence. I have made some small alterations 
in what I before had printed I have the ad- 
vice of some very judicious friends among the 
literati here, but with them I sometimes find it 
necessary to claim the privilege of thinking for 
myself. The noble Eail of Glencairn, to whom 
I owe more than to any man, does me the hon- 
our of giving me his strictures : his hints with 
respect to impropriety or indelicacy, I follow im- 
plicitly. 

You kindly interest yourself in my future 
views and prospects ; there I can give you no 
light ; it is all 

" Dark as was chaos, ere the infant sua 
Was roU'd together, or had tried his beams 
Athwart the gloom profound." 

The appellation of a Scottish bard is by far 
my highest pride ; to continue to deserve it is 
my most exalted ambition. Scottish scenes and 
Scottish story are the themes I could wish to 
sing. I have no dearer aim than to have it in 
my power, unplagued with the routine of busi- 
ness, for which heaven knows I am unfit enough, 
to make leisurely pilgrimages through Caledonia ; 
to sit on the fields of her battles ; to wander on 
the romantic banks of her rivers ; and to muse 
by the stately towers or venerable ruins, once 
the honoured abodes of her heroes. 

But these are all Utopian thoughts : I have 
dallied long enough with life : 'tis time to be in 
earnest. I have a fond, an aged mother to care 
for J and some other bosom ties perhaps equally 
tender. Where the individual only suffers by 
the consequences of his own thoughtlessness, in- 
dolence, or folly, he may be excusable : nay, 
shining abilities, and some of the nobler virtues, 
may half-sanctify a heedless character : but 
where God and nature have intrusted the wel- 
fare of others to his care ; where the trust is sa- 
cred, and the ties are dear, that man must be 
far gone in selfishness, or strangely lost to reflec- 
tion, whom these connections will not rouse to 
exertion. 

I guess that I shall clear between tvvo and 
three hundred pounds by my authorship ; with 
that sum I intend, so far as I may be said to 
have any intention, to return to my old acquain- 
tance, the plough, and, if I can meet with a 
lease by which I can live, to commence farmer. 
I do not intend to give up poetry : being bred 
to labour secures me independence ; and the 
muses are my chief, sometimes have been my 
only enjoyment. If my practice second my re- 
solution, I shall have principally at heart the se- 
rious business of life : but while following my 
plough, or building up my shocks, I shall cast a 
leisure glance to that dear, that only feature of 
my character, which gave me the notice of my 
country and the patronage of a Wallace. 

Tims, honoured madam, I have given you the 
bard, his situation, and his views, native as they 
are in liis own bosom. 



CORRESPONDENCE, 



265 



No. XXXVII. 

TO THE SMIE. 

MADAM, Edhiburgh, Iblh April, 1787. 

Theue is an affectation of gratitude which I 
dislike. The periods of Johnson and the pauses 
of Sterne may hide a selfish heart. For my 
part, ]Madam, I trust I have too much pride for 
servility, and too little prudence for selfishness, 
I have this moment hroke open your letter, 
but 

" Rude am I in speech, 

And therefore little can I grace my cause 

In speaking for myself — " 

so I shall not trouble you with any fine speeches 
and hunted figures. I shall just lay my hand 
on my heart, and say, I hope I shall ever have 
the truest, the warmest, sense of your goodness. 

I come abroad in print for certain on Wed- 
nesday. Your orders I shall j)unctually attend 
to ; only, by the way, I must tell you that I 
was paid before for Dr. Moore's and INIiss W.'s 
copies, through the medium of Commissioner 
Cochrane in this place ; but that we can settle 
when I have the honour of waiting on you. 

Dr. Smith* was just gone to London the 
morning before I received your letter to him. 



No. XXXVIII. 
TO DR. MOORE. 

Edinburgh, 23d April, 1797. 

I RECEIVED the books, and sent the one you 
mentioned to Mrs. Dunlop. I am ill-skilled in 
beating the coverts of imagination for metaphors 
of gratitude. I thank you, Sir, for the honour 
you have done me ; and to my latest hour will 
warmly remember it. To be highly pleased 
with your book, is what I have in common 
with the world ; but to regard these volumes as 
a mark of the author's friendly esteem, is a still 
more supreme gratification. 

I leave Edinburgh in the course of ten days 
or a fortnight ; and after a few pilgrimages over 
some of the classic ground of Caledonia, Cow- 
den- Knowes, Hanks of Yarrow, Tweed, &,'c. 
I shall return to my rural shades, in all likeli- 
hood never more to quit them. I have formed 
many intimacies and friendships here, but I am 
afraid they are all of too tender a construction 
to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles. To 
the rich, the great, the fashionable, the polite, 
7 have no equivalent to offer ; and I am afraid 
my meteor appearance will by no means entitle 
me to a settled correspondence with any of you, 
who are the permanent lights of genius and li- 
terature. 



Adam Smith. 



54 



My most rcs}>ectful compliments to Miss W. 
If once this tangent flight of mine were over, 
and I were returned to my wonted leisurely 
motion in my old circle, I may probably endea- 
vour to return her poetic compliment in kind. 



No. XXXIX. 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER 

TO MRS DUNLOP. 

Edinburgh, 30th April, 1787. 

Your criticisms, ]\Iadam, I under- 
stand very well, and could have wished to have 
pleased you better. You are right in your guess 
that I am not very amenable to counsel. Poets, 
much my superiors, have so flattered those who 
possessed the adventitious qualities of wealth and 
power, that I am determined to flatter no cre- 
ated being either in prose or verse. 

I set as little by , lords, clergy, cri- 
tics, &c. as all these respective gentry do by 
my hardship. I know what I may expect from 
the world by and by — illiberal abuse, and per- 
haps contemptuous neglect. 

I am happy, Madam, that some of my own 
favourite pieces are distinguished by your ])ar- 
ticular approbation. For my Dream, which 
has unfortunately incurred your loyal displea- 
sure, I hope in four weeks, or less, to have the 
honour of appearing at Dunlop in its defence, iu 
person. 



No. XL. 



TO THE REVEREND DR. HUGH BLAIR. 

Lawn-Market, Edinburgh, 3d May, 1787. 

REVEilEND AND MUCH RESPECTED SIR, 

I LEAVE Edinburgh to-morrow morning, but 
could not go without troubling you with half a 
line, sincerely to thank you for the kindness, 
patronage, and friendship you have shown me. 
I often felt the embarrassment of my singular si- 
tuation ; drawn forth from the veriest shades 
of life to the glare of remark ; and honoured by 
the notice of those illustrious names of my coun- 
try, whose works, w^hile they aie applauded to 
the end of time, will ever instruct and mend the 
heart. However the meteor-like novelty of my 
appearance in the world might attract notice, 
and honour me with the acquaintance of the 
permanent lights of genius and literature, those 
who are truly benefictors of the immortal na- 
ture of man ; I knew very well, tliat my utmost 
merit was far unefjual to the task of preserving 
that character when once the novelty was over. 
I have made up ipy mind, that abuse, or almost 



266 



BURNS' WORKS. 



eyea neglect, wiJl uot surpiiie me in my 
quarters. 

I have sent you a proof impressiou of Beu- 
go's work for me, done on Indian paper, as a 
trifling but sincere testimony with what heart- 
warm gratitude I am, &.c. 



No. XLI. 



FROM DR. BLAIR. 

Argyle- Square, Edinburgh, iih May, 1787. 

DEAR SIR, 

I WAS favoured this forenoon with your very 
obliging letter, together with an impression of 
your portrait, for which I return you my best 
thanks. The success you have met with I do 
not think was beyond your merits ; and if I 
have had any small hand in contributing to it, 
it gives me great pleasure. I know no way in 
which literary persons, who are advanced in 
years, can do more service to the world, than 
in forwarding the eflforts of rising genius, or 
bringing forth unknown merit from obscurity. 
I was the first person who brought out to the 
notice of the world, the poems of Ossian : first 
by the Fragments of Ancient Poetry, which I 
published, and afterwards, by niy setting on 
foot the undertaking for collecting and publish- 
ing the Works of Ossian ; and I have always 
considered this as a meritorious action of my 
life. 

Your situation, as you say, was indeed very 
singular ; and, in being brought out all at once 
from the shades of deepest privacy, to so great 
a share of public notice and observation, you 
had to stand a severe trial. I am happy that 
you have stood it so well ; and as far as I have 
known or heard, though in the midst of many 
temptations, without reproach to your charac- 
ter and behaviour. 

You are now, I presume, to retire to a more 
private walk of life ; and I trust, will conduct 
yourself there with industry, prudence, and ho- 
nour. You have laid the foundation for just 
public esteem. In the midst of those employ- 
ments, which your situation will render proper, 
you will not, I hope, neglect to promote that 
esteem, by cultivating your genius, and attend- 
ing to such productions of it as may raise your 
character still higher. At the same time, be 
not in too great a haste to come forward. Take 
time and leisure to improve and mature your 
talents ; for on any second production you give 
the world, your fate, as a poet, will veiy much 
depend. There is, no doubt, a gloss of novelty 
which time wears off. As you very properly 
hint yourself, you are not to be surprised if, in 
your rural retreat, you do not find yourself sur- 
rounded with that glare of notice and applause 
which here shone upon you. No man can be 
a good poet without being somewhat of a phi- 



losopher. He must lay his account, that iny 
one, who exposes himself to public observation, 
will occasionally meet with the attacks of illi- 
beral censure, which it is always best to over- 
look and despise. He will be inclined some- 
times to court retreat, and to disappear from 
public view. He will not affect to shine al- 
ways, that he may at proper seasons come forth 
with more advantage and energy. He will not 
think himself neglected if he be not always 
praised. I have taken the liberty, you see, of 
an old man, to give advice and make reflections 
which your own good sense will, I dare say, 
render unnecessary. 

As you mention your being just about to 
leave town, you are going, I should suppose, to 
Dumfriesshire, to look at some of Mr. Miller's 
farms. I heartily wish the offers to be made 
you there may answer; as I am persuaded you 
will not easily find a more generous and better 
hearted proprietor to live under than Mr. Mil- 
ler. When you return, if you come this way, 
I will be happy to see you, and to know con- 
cerning your future plans of life. You will 
find me, by the 22d of this month, not in my 
house in Argyle Square, but at a country-house 
at Restalrig, about a mile east from Edinburgh, 
near the Musselburgh road. Wishing you all 
success and prosperity, I am, with real regard 
and esteem, 

Dear Sir, 

Yours sincerely, 

HUGH BLAIR. 



No. XLIL 

TO WILLIAM CREECH, Esq. 
{of Edinburgh,) London. 

Selkirk, 13th May, 1787- 

MY HONOURED FRIEND, 

The enclosed* I have just wrote, nearly ex- 
tempore, in a solitary inn in Selkirk, after a 
miserable wet day's riding. — I have been over 
most of East Lothian, Berwick, Roxburgh, and 
Selkirkshires ; and next week I begin a tour 
through the north of England. Yesterday I 
dined with Lady Harlot, sister to my noble pa- 
tron. Quern Dens conservet ! I vvould write till 
I would tire you as much with dull prose as I 
dare say by this time you are with wretched 
verse, but I am jaded to death ; so, with a grate- 
ful farewell, 

I have the honour to be. 

Good Sir, yours sincerely. 



* Elegy on W. Creech ; see the Poetry. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 
No. XLIII. 
FROM DR. MOORE. 



267 



Glifford Street, May 23, 1787. 

DEAR SIR, 

I HAD the pleasure of your letter by Mr. 
Creech, and soon after he sent me the new edi- 
tion of your poems. You seem to think it in- 
cumbent on you to send to each subscriber a 
number of copies proportionate to his subscrip- 
tion money ; but you may depend upon it, few 
subscribers expect more than one copy, what- 
ever they subscribed. I must inform you, how- 
ever, that I took twelve copies for those subscri- 
bers for whose money you were so accurate as 
to send me a receipt ; and Lord Eglinton told 
me he had sent for six copies for himself, as he 
wished to give five of them in presents. 

Some of the poems you have added in this 
last edition are beautiful, particularly the Win- 
ter Night, the Address to Edinburgh, Green 
ffrow the Rashes, and the two songs immediate- 
ly following ; the latter of which was exquisite. 
By the way, I imagine you have a peculiar ta- 
lent for such compositions, which you ouglit to 
indulge.* No kind of poetry demands more 
delicacy or higher polishing. Horace is more 
admired on account of his Odes than all his 
other writings. But nothing now added is 
equal to your Vision and Cotter's Suturdai/ 
Night. In these are united fine imagery, na- 
tural and pathetic description, with sublimity of 
language and thought. It is evident that you 
already possess a great variety of expression and 
command of the English language ; you ought, 
therefore, to deal more sparingly for the future 
in the provincial dialect : — why should you, by 
using that, limit the number of your admirers to 
those who understand the Scottish, when you 
can extend it to all persons of taste who under- 
stand the English language ? In my opinion, 
you should plan some larger work than any you 
have as yet attempted. I mean, reflect upon 
some proper sul)ject, and arrange the plan in 
your mind, without beginning to execute any 
part of it till you have studied most of the best 
English poets, and read a little more of history. 
The Greek and Roman stories you can read in 
some abridgment, and soon become master of 
the most brilliant facts, which must highly de- 
light a poetical mind. You should also, and 
very soon may, become master of the heathen 
mythology, to which th^re are everlasting allu- 
sions in all the poets, and which in itself is 
charmingly fanciful. What will require to be 
studied with more attention, is modern history ; 
that is, the history of France and Great Britain, 
from the beginning of Henry the Seventh's reign. 
I know very well you have a mind capable of 
attaining knowledge by a shorter process than 
is commoaly used, and I am certain you are ca- 



pable of making a better use of it, when attain 
ed, than is generally done. 

I l>eg you will not give yourself the trouble 
of writing to me when it is inconvenient, and 
make no apology, when you do write, for ha- 
ving postponed it ; be assured of this, however, 
that I shall always be happy to hoar from you. 

I think my friend Mr. told me that you 

had some poems in manuscript by you of a sati- 
rical and humorous nature (in which, by the 
way, I think yo>i very strong), which your pru- 
dent friends prevailed on you to omit, particu- 
larly one called Somebody's Confession ; if you 
will entrust me with a sight of any of these, I 
will pawn my word to give no copies, and will 
be obliged to you for a perusal of them. 

I understand you intend to take a farm, and 
make the useful and respectable business of hus- 
bandry your chief occupation ; this, I hope, will 
not prevent your making occasional addresses to 
the nine ladies Avho have shown you such fa- 
vour, one of whom visited you in the auld clay 
biggin. Virgil, before you, proved to the world 
that there is nothing in the business of husband- 
ry inimical to poetry ; and I sincerely hope that 
you may afford an example of a good poet being 
a successful farmer. I fear it will not be in my 
power to visit Scotland this season ; when I do, 
I'll endeavour to find you out, for I heartily 
wish to see and converse with you. If ever 
your occasions call you to this place, I make no 
doubt of your paying me a visit, and you may 
depend on a very cordial welcome from this fa- 
mily. I am, dear Sir, 

Your friend and obedient servant, 

J. MOORE. 



* His subsequent compositions will bear testimony 
to the accuracy of Dr. Moore's judgment. 



No. XLIV. 
TO MR. W. NICOLL, 

Master of the High-School, Edinburgh. 
Carlisle, June I, 1787. 

KIND, HONEST-HEARTED WILLIE. 

I'm sitten down here, after seven and forty 
miles ridin, e'en as forjesket and forniaw'd as a 
forfoughten cock, to gie you some notion o' mv 
land lowper-like stravaguin sin the sorrowfu' 
hour that I sheuk hands and parted wi' auld 
Reekie. 

My auld, ga'd gleyde o' a meere has huchy- 
all'd up hill and down brae, in Scotland and 
England, as teugh and birnie as a vera devil wi' 
me.* It's true, she's as poor's a sang-maker 



* This mare was the Poet's favourite Jenny Gkd- 
DES, of whom honourable and most humorous men- 
tion is made in a letter, inserted in Dr. Currie's edition, 
vol. i. p. 1G.5. 

This old and faithful ser\'ant of the Poet's was named 
by him, after the old woman, who in her zeal against 
religious innovation, threw a stool at the Dean of 
Edinburgh's head, when he attempted in 1537, to in 
troduoe the Seottish Liturgy. " On .Sunday, the 23d 



268 



BITRNS' WORKS. 



and as hard's a kirk, and tipper-talpers when 
she taks the gate, first like a lady's gentlewoman 
in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle, but 
she's a yauld, poutherie Girran for a' that, and 
has a stomack like Willie Stalker's ineere that 
wad hae disgeested tumbler-wheels, for she'll 
whip me aff her five stimparts o' the best alts 
at a down-sittin and ne'er fash her thumb. 
When ance her ringbanes and spavies, her crucks 
and cramps, are fairly soupl'd, she beets to, 
beets to, and ay the hindmost hour the tightest. 
I could wager her price to a thretty pennies 
that, for twa or three wooks ridin at fifty mile 
a day, the deil-sticket a five gallopers acqueesh 
Clyde and Whithorn could cast saut on her tail. 

I hae dander'd owre a' the kintra frae Dum- 
bar to Selcraig, and hae forgather'd wi' raony a 
guid fallow, and monie a weelfar'd hizzie. I 
met wi' twa dink quines in particlar, ane o' 
them a sonsie, fine, fodgel lass, baith braw and 
bonie ; the tither was a clean-shankit, straught, 
tight, weelfar'd winch, as blithe's a lintwhite 
on a flowerie thorn, and as sweet and modest's 
a new blawn plumrose in a hazle shaw. They 
were baith bred to mainers by the beuk, and 
onie ane o' them had as muckle smeddum and 
rumblgumtion as the half o' some presbytries 
that you and I baith ken. They play'd me sik 
a deevil o' a shavie that I daur say if my hari- 
gals were turn'd out, ye wad see twa nicks i' the 
heart o' me like the mark o' a kail-whittle in a 
castock. 

I was gaun to write you a lang pystle, but, 
Gude forgie me, I gat mysel sae notouriously 
bitchify'd the day after kail-time that I can 
hardly stoker but and ben. 

My best rcspecks to the guid wife and a' our 
common friens, especiall JMr. and I\Irs. Cruik- 
.^llank and the honest gurdman o' .lock's Lodge. 

I'll be in Dumfries the morn gif the beast be 
to the fore, and the brauks bide hale. 

Gude be wi' you, Willie ! 

Amen ! — 



No. XLV. 



FROM MR. JOHN HUTCHINSON. 

Jamaica, St. Anns, \ith June, 1787. 

SIR, 

I RECEIVED yours, dated Edinburgh, 2d .Ja- 
nuary, 1787, wherein you acquaint me you were 
engaged with Mr. Douglas of Port Antonio, for 



of July, the Desn of Edinburgh prepared to officiate 
in St. Ci ilea's. Tlie congregation continiied quiet till 
the service began, when an old woman, impelled by 
sudden indignation, started up, and exdainung aloud, 
' Villain! doit thou say the Mass at my Jug !' threw 
the stool on which she had been sitting, at the Dean's 
head. A wild uproar commenced that instant. The 
service was interrupted. The women invaded the 
desk with execrations and outcries, and the Dean dis- 
enjragcd himself from his surplice to escape from their 
hands."— Z/at?i^* Uitit. of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 122. 



three years, at thirty pounds sterling a-year ; 
and am happy some unexpected accidents inter- 
vened that prevented your sailing with the ves- 
sel, as I have great reason to think Mr. Dou- 
glas's employ would by no means have answer- 
ed your expectations. I received a copy of your 
publications, for which I return you my thanks, 
and it is my own opinion, as welt as that of such 
of my friends as have seen them, they are most 
excellent in their kind ; although some could 
have wished they had been in the EngHsh style, 
as they allege the Scottish dialect is now be- 
coming obsolete, and thereby the elegance and 
beauties of your poems are in a great measure 
lost to far the greater part of the community. 
Nevertheless there is no doubt you had sufficient 
reasons for your conduct — perhaps the wishes 
of some of the Scottish nobility and gentry, your 
patrons, who will always relish their own old 
country style ; and your own inclinations for 
the same. It is evident from several passages 
in your works, you are as capable of writing in 
the English as in the Scottish dialect, and I am 
in great hopes your genius for poetry, from the 
specimen you have already given, will turn out 
both for profit and honour to yourself and 
country. I can by no means advise you now 
to think of coming to the West Indies, as, I 
assure you, there is no encouragement for a 
man of learning and genius here ; and am very 
confident you can do far better in Great Bri- 
tain, than in Jamaica. I am glad to hear my 
friends are well, and shall always be happy to 
hear from you at all convenient opportunities, 
wishing you success in all your undertakings. 
I will esteem it a particular favour if you will 
send me a copy of the other edition you are now 
printing. 

T am, with respect, 

Dear Sir, yours, &c. 

JOHN HUTCHINSON. 



No. XL VI. 
TO MR. W. NICOLL. 

Mauchline, June 18, 1787. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I AM now arrived safe in my native country, 
after a very agreeable jaunt, and have the plea- 
sure to find all my friends well. I breakfasted 
with your grey-headed, reverend friend, Mv. 
Smith ; and was highly pleased both with the 
cordial welcome he gave me, and his most ex- 
cellent appearance and sterling good sense. 

I have been with JMr. Miller at Dalswinton, 
and am to meet him again in August. From 
my view of the lands and his reception of my 
hardship, my hopes in that business are rather 
mended ; but still they arc but slender. 

I am quite charmed with Dumfries folks — 
Mr. Burnside, the clergyman, in particular, is 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



269 



a man whom I shall ever gratefully remember ; 
and his wife, Gudc forgie me, I had almost 
broke the tenth commaiulment on her account. 
Simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of 
disposition, good humour, kind hospitality, are 
the constituents of her manner and heart ; in 
short — but if I say one word more about her, I 
shall be directly in love with her. 

I never, my friend, thought mankind very 
capable of any thing generous ; but the stateli- 
ness of the Patricians in Edinburgh, and the 
servility of my plebeian brethren, (who, per- 
haps, formerly eyed mo askance), since I re- 
turned home, have nearly put me out of conceit 
altogether with my species. I have bought a 
pocket Milton which I carry perpetually about 
with me, in order to study the sentiments — the 
dauntless magnanimity ; the intrepid, imyield- 
ing independence, the desperate daring, and 
noble defiance of hardship, in that great per- 
sonage, Satan. 'Tis true, I have just now a 
little cash ; but I am afraid the star that hith 
erto has shed its malignant, purpose-blastin< 
rays full in my zenith ; that noxious planet so 
baneful in its influences to the rhyming tribe, I 

much dread it is not yet beneath my horizon 

IMisfortune dodges the path of human life ; the 
poetic mind finds itself miserably deranged in, 
and unfit for the walks of business ; add to all, 
that, thoughtless follies and hare-brained whims, 
like so many ignes fatui, eternally diverging 
from the right line of sober discretion, sparkle 
with step-bewitching blaze in the idly-gazing 
eyes of the poor heedless Bard, till, pop, " he 
falls like Lucifer, never to hope again." God 
grant this may be an unreal picture with re- 
spect to me ! but should it not, I have very 
little dependence on mankind. I will close my 
letter with this tribute my heart bids me pay 
you — the many ties of acquaintance and fricnd- 
f?hip which I have, or think I have in life, I 
have felt along the hnes, and, d — n them ! they 
are almost all of them of such frail contexture, 
that I am sure they woidd not stand the breath 
of the least adverse breeze of fortune ; but from 
you, my ever dear Sir, I look with confidence 
for the Apostolic love that shall wait on me 
" through good report and bad report" — the 
love which Solomon emphatically says " Is 
strong as death." IMy compliments to IMrs. 
NicoU, and all the circle of our common friends. 

P. S. I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter 
end of July. 



No. XLVII. 



TO GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. 
Mr DEAR SIR, Stirling, 28th Aug, 1787. 



and Stirling, and am delighted with their ap- 
pearance : richly waving crops of wheat, barley, 
&c. but no harvest at all yet, except in one or 
two places, an old Wife's Ridge — Yesterday 
morning I rode from this town up the mean- 
dring Devon's banks to pay my respects to some 
Ayrshire folks at Ilarvieston. After breakfast, 
we made a party to go and see the famous Cau- 
dron-linn, a remarkable cascade in the Devon, 
about five miles above Harvieston ; and after 
spending one of the most pleasant days I ever 
had in my life, I returned to Stirling in the 
eveniug. They are a family. Sir, though I had 
not had any prior tie ; though they had not been 
the brother and sisters of a certain generous 
friend of mine, I would never forget them. I 
am told you have not seen them these several 
years, so you can have very little idea of what 
these young folks are now. Your brother is as 
tall as you are, but slender rat'ier than other- 
wise ; and I have the satisfaction to inform you 
that he is getting the better of those consump- 
tive symptoms which I suppose you know were 
threatening him. His make, and particularly 
his manner, resemble you, but he will still have 
a finer face. (I put in the word still, to please 
Mts. Hamilton.) Good sense, modesty, and at 
the same time a just idea of that respect that 
man owes to man, and has a right in his turn 
to exact, are striking features in his character ; 
and, what with me is the Alpha and the Ome- 
ga, he has a heart might adorn the breast of a 
poet ! Grace has a good figure and the look of 
health and cheerfulness, but nothing else re- 
markable in her jierson. I scarcely ever saw so 
striking a likeness as is between her and your 
little Beenie ; the mouth and chin particularly. 
She is reserved at first ; but as we grew better 
acquainted, I was delighted with the native 
frankness of her manner, and the sterling sense 
of her observation. Of Charlotte, I cannot 
speak in common terms of admiration : she is 
not only beautiful, but lovely. Her form is ele- 
gant ; her features not regular, but they have 
the smile of sweetness and the settled compla- 
cency of good nature in the highest degree ; and 
her complexion, now that she has happily re- 
covered her wonted health, is equal to JNIiss 
Burnet's. After the exercise of our riding to 
the Falls, Charlotte was exactly Dr. Donne's 
mistress : 



*• Her pure and eloquent blood 
her cheeks, and so distinctly 



Spoke in 

wrought. 
That one would almost say her body thought." 

Her eyes are fascinating ; at once expressive of 
good sense, tenderness, and a noble mind. 

I do not give you all this account, ray good 
Sir, to flatter you. I mean it to reproach you. 
Such relations the first peer in the realm might 
own with pride ; then why do you not keep up 



Here am I on my way to Inverness. I have ' more correspondence with these so amiable 
rambled over the rich, fertile carses of Falkirk young folks? I had a thousand questions to 



270 



BURNS' WORKS. 



answer about you all : I had to describe the 
little ones with the miniiteness of anatomy. 
They were higlily delighted when I told them 
that John* was so (^ood a boy, and so fine a 
scholar, and that Willie f was going on still 
very pretty ; but I have it in commission to 
tell her from them that beauty is a poor silly 
bauble without she be good. Miss Chalmers I 
had left in Edinburgh, but I had the pleasure 
of meeting with Mrs. Chalmers, only Lady 
M'Kenzie being rather a little alarmingly ill of 
a sore-throat, somewhat marr'd our enjoyment. 
I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. 
My most respectful compliments to Mrs. Ha- 
milton, Miss Kennedy, and Dr. M'Kenzie. I 
shall probably write him fiom some stage or 
other. 

I am ever, Sir, 

Yours most gratefully. 



No. XLVIII. 

TO MR. WALKER, BLAIR OF 
ATHOLE. 

Inverness, bth Sept. 1787. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

I HAVE just time to write the foregoing, | 
and to tell you that it was (at least most part 
of it), the effusion of an half hour I spent at 
Bruar. I do not mean it was extempore, for I 
have endeavoured to brush it up as well as Mr. 

N -'s chat, and the jogging of the chaise, 

would allow. It eases my heart a good deal, 
as rhyme is the coin with which a poet pays his 
debts of honour or gratitude. What I owe to 
the noble family of Athole, of the first kind, I 
«hall ever proudly boast ; what I owe of the 
last, so help me God in my hour of need, I 
shall never forget. 

The little " angel band ! — I declare I pray 
ed for them very sincerely to-day at the Fall of 
Fyars. I shall never forget the fine family- 
piece I saw at Blair ; the amiable, the truly 
noble Duchess, with her smiling little seraph 
in her lap, at the head of the table ; the lovely 
*' olive plants," as the Hebrew bard finely says, 
round the happy mother ; the beautiful Mrs. 

G ; the lovely, sweet Miss C. &c. I wish 

I had the powers of Guido to do them justice ! 
My Lord Duke's kind hos|iitality, markedly 

kijul, intleed Mr G. of F 's charms of 

conversation — Sir W. INI 's friendship — in 

short, the recollection of all that polite, agree- 



able company, raises an honest glow in my bo- 
som. 



♦ This is tlie " wee. curlic Johnnie," mentioned in 
Bums's dwiication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. To this 
gentleman, and every branch of the faTnily, the Editor 
is indebted for much information respecting the poet, 
and very gratefully acicnowledges the kindness shewn 
to himself. 

\ Now married to the Rev. John Tod, Minister of 
Mauchline. 

J " The humble Petition of Bruar-Water to the 
Duke of Athole." 



No. XLIX. 
TO MR. GILBERT BURNS. 

Edinburgh, 11 th Sept. 1787. 

MY DKAR BROTHER., 

I ARRIVED here safe yesterday evening, after 
a tour of twenty-two days, and travelling near 
six hundred miles, windings included. My 
farthest stretch was about ten miles beyond In- 
verness. I went through the heart of the 
Highlands, by Crieff, Tayraouth, the famous 
seat of Lord Breadalbane, down the Tay, 
among cascades and druidical circles of stones 
to Dunkeld, a seat of the Duke of Athole ; 
thence cross Tay, and )ip one of his tributary 
streams to Blair of Atiiole, another of the 
Duke's seats, where I had the honour of spend- 
ing nearly two days with his Grace and family ; 
thence many miles through a wild country, a- 
mong cliffs grey with eternal snows, and gloomy 
savage glens, till I crossed Spey and went down 
the stream through Strathspey, so famous in 
Scottish music, Badenoch, &c. till I reached 
Grant Castle, where I spent half a day with 
.Sir James Grant and family ; and then crossed 
the country for Fort George, hut called by the 
way at Cawdor, the ancient seat of Macbeath ; 
there I saw the identical bed in which, tradi- 
tion says. King Duncan was murdered : lastly, 
from Fort George to Inverness. 

I returned by the coast, through Nairn, For- 
res, and so on, to Aberdeen ; thence to Stone- 
hive, where James Burnes, from Montrose, met 
me by appointment. I spent two days among 
our relations, and found our aunts, Jean and 
Isabel, still alive, and hale old women. .John 
Caird, though born the same year with our fa- 
ther, walks as vigorously as I can ; they have 
had several letters from his son in New York. 
William Brand is likewise a stout old fellow : 
but further particulars I delay till I see you, 
which will be in two or three weeks. The 
rest of my stages are not worth rehearsing : 
warm as I was from Ossian's coimtry, where I 
had seen his very grave, what cared I for fish- 
ing towns or fertile carses ? I slept at the fa- 
mous Brodie of Brodie's one night, and dined 
at Gordon Castle next day with the Duke, 
Duchess, and family. I am thinking to cause 
my old mare to nu'ct me, by means of John 
Ronald, at Glasgow ; but you shall hear farther 
from me before I leave Edinburgh. My duty, 
and many compliments from the north, to my 
mother, and my brotherly compliments to the 
rest. I have been trying for a birth for Wil- 
liam, bnt am not likely to be successful. — 
Faiewell. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



271 



No. L. 
FROM MR. R . 

SIR, Ochtertyre, 22d October, 17S7. 

*TwAS only yesterday I got Colonel Edinon- 
stoun's answer, that neither the words of 
Down the burn Davie, nor Dainty Davie (I 
forgot which you mentioned), were written by 
Colonel G. Crawford. Next time I meet him, 
I will inquire about his cousin's poetical talents. 

Enclosed are the inscriptions you requested, 
and a letter to Mr. Young, whose company and 
musical talents will, I am persuaded, be a feast 
to you.* Nobody can give you better hints, 
as to your present plan, than he. Receive 
aJso Omcron Cameron, which seemed to make 
such a deep impression on your imagination, 
that I am not without hopes it will beget sorae- 



* These Inscriptions, so much admired by Burns, 
are below : — 

WRITTEN IN 1768. 

FOR THE SALICTU.M AT OCHTERTYRE. 

Salubritatis voluptatisque causa. 

Hoc Salictum, 

Paludem olim infidam, 

Mihi mcisque desicco et exorno. 

Hie, procul iiegotiis strepituque 

Innocuisdeliciis 

Silvnlas inter nascentes reptandi, 

Apiumque laborcs suspiciendi, 

Fnior, 

Hie, si faxit Dens opt. max. 

Prope hunc fontera pellucidum. 

Cum quadam juventutis amico superstite, 

Ssepe conquiescam, senex, 

Contentus modicis, meoque laetus ! 

Sin aliter — 

^vique paululum supersit, 

Vos silvulae, et amici, 

Cspteraque amoena, 

Valete, diuque laetamini ! 



ENGLISHED. 

To improve both air and soil, 

I dram and decorate this plantation of willows. 

Which was lately an unprofitable morass. 

Here, far from noise and strife, 

I love to wander. 

Now fondly marking the progress of my trees. 

Now studying the bee, its art-s and manners. 

Here, if it pleases Almighty God, 

May I often rest in the evening of life, 

Near that transparent foinUain, 

With some surviving friend of iny youth; 

Contented with a competency. 

And happy with my lot- 
If vain these humble wishes. 
And life draws near a close, 

Ye trees and friends. 

And whatever else is dear. 

Farewell, and long may ye flourish. 



ABOVE THE DOOR OF THE HOUSE. 

written in IVT'J. 

MiMi meisque utinam contingat, 

Prope Taichi marginem, 

Avito in Agello, 

Rene vivere fausteque mori ! 



thing to delight the public in due time : and, 
no doubt, the circumstances of this little tale 
might be varied or extended, so as to make 
part of a pastoral comedy. Age or wounds 
might have kept Omeron at home, whilst hid 
countrymen were iu the field. His station 
may be somewhat varied, without losing his 
simplicity and kindness .... A group 
of characters, male and female, connected with 
the plot, might be formed from his family, or 
some neighbouring one of rank. It is not in- 
dispensable that the guest should be a man of 
high station ; nor is the political quarrel in 
which he is engaged, of much importance, un- 
less to call forth the exercise of generosity and 
faithfulness, grafted on patriarchal hospitality. 
To introduce state affairs, would raise the 
style above comedy ; though a small sj)iee of 
them would season the converse of swains. 
Upon this head I cannot say more than to re- 
commend the study of the character of Eumaeus 
in the Odyssey, which, in Mr. Pope's transla- 
tion, is an exquisite and invaluable drawing 
from nature, that would suit some of our coun- 
try elders of the present day. 

There must be love in the plot, and a happy 
discovery ; atid peace and pardon may be the 
reward of hospitality, and honest attachment 
to misguided principles. When you have once 
thought of a plot, and brought the story into 
form, Dr. Blacklock, or Mr. H. Mackenzie, 
may be useful in dividing it into acts and 
scenes ; for in these matters one must pay 
some attention to certain rules of the drama. 
These you (tould afterwards fill up at your lei- 
sure. But, whilst I presume to give a few 
well-meant hints, let me advise you to study 
the spirit of my namesake's dialogue, • which 
is natural without being low, and, under the 
trammels of verse, is such as country people in 
their situations speak every day. You have 
only to bring down your own strain a very lit- 
tle. A great plan, such as this, would con- 
center ail your ideas, which facilitates the exe- 
cution, and makes it a part of one's pleasure. 

I approve of your plan of retiring from din 
and dissipation to a farm of very moderate size, 
sufficient to find exercise for mind and body, 
btit not so great as to absorb better things. 
And if some intellectual pursuit be well chosen 
and steadily pursued, it will bo more lucrative 
than most farms, in this age of rapid improve- 
ment. 

Upon this subject, as your well-wisher and 
admirer, permit me to go a step farther. Let 



ENGLISHED. 

On the banks of the Teith, 

In the small but sweet inheritance 

Of my fathers. 

May I and mine live in ]ieace. 

And die in joyful hope ! 



These inscriptions, and the translations, are in th« 

hand. writing of Mr. R 

* Allan Ramsay, in the Gentle Shepherd. 



272 



BURNS' WORKS. 



those bright talents which the Almighty has 
bestowed on you, be henceforth employed to 
the noble purpose of supporting the cause of 
truth and virtue. An imagination so varied 
and forcible as yours, may do this in many dif- 
ferent modes ; nor is it necessary to be always 
serious, which you have been to good purpose ; 
good morals may be recommended in a comedy, 
or even in a song. Great allowances are due 
to the heat and inexperience of youth ; — and 
few poets can boast, like Thomson, of never 
having written a line, which, dying, they would 
wish to blot. In particular, I wish you to 
keep clear of the thorny walks of satire, which 
makes a man a hundred enemies for one friend, 
and is doubly dangerous when one is supposed 
to extend the slips and weaknesses of indivi- 
duals to their sect or party. About modes of 
faith, serious and excellent men have always 
diflFered ; and there are certain curious ques- 
tions, which may afford scope to men of meta 
physical heads, but seldom mend the heart or 
temper. Whilst these points are beyond hu- 
man ken, it is sufficient that all our sects con- 
cur in their views of morals. You will forgive 
me for these hints. 

Well ! what think you of good lady C. ? 
It is a pity she is so deaf, and speaks so indis- 
tinctly. Her house is a specimen of the man- 
sions of our gentry of the last age, when hos- 
pitality and elevation of mind were conspicu- 
ous amidst plain fare and plain furniture. I 
shall be glad to hear from you at times, if it 
were no more than to show that you take the 
effusions of an obscure man like me in good 
part. I beg my best respects to Dr. and Mrs. 
Blacklock,* 

And am, Sir, 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

J. RAMSAY. 



No. LI. 



FROM MR. W 



Athole House, ISth September, 1787. 
Your letter of the 5th reached me only on 
the llth; what awkward route it had taken I 
know not ; but it deprived me of the pleasure 
of writing to you in the manner yo'i proposed, 
as you must have left Dundee before a letter 
could possibly have got there. I hope your 
disappointment on being forced to leave us was 
as great as appeared from your expressions. 
This is the best consolation for the greatness 
of ours. I still think with vexation on that 
ill-timed indisposition which lost me a day's 
enjoyment of a man (I speak without flattery) 
possessed of those very dispositions and talents 

I most admire ; one 

. . . . You know how anxious the Duke 
was to have another day of you, and to let Mr. 
Dundas have the pleasure of your conversation 
as the best dainty with which he could enter- 
tain an honoured guest. You know likewise 
the eagerness the ladies showed to detain you ; 
but perhaps you do not know the scheme 
which they devised, with their usual fertility 
in resources. One of the servants was sent to 
your driver to bribe him to loosen or pull off a 
shoe from one of his horses, but the ambush 



* TALE OF OMERON CAMERON. 

In one of the wars betwixt the Crown of Scotland 
and the Lords of the Isles, Alexander Stewart, Earl of 
Mar (a distinguished character in the fifteenth cen- 
tury), and Donald Stewart, Earl of Caithness, had the 
/iommand of the royal army. They marched into 
Loehaber, with a view of attacking a body of M'Don 
aids, commanded by Donald Balloch, and posted upon 
an arm of the sea which intersects that country. Hav- 
ing timely intelligence of their approach, the insur- 
gents got off precii)itately to the opposite shore in their 
curaghs, or boats covered with skins. The king's 
troops encamped m full security; but theM'Donalds, 
returning about midnight, surprised them, killed the 
Earl of Caithness, and destroyed or dispersed the whole 
army. 

The Earl of Mar escaped in the dark, without any 
attendants, and made for the inore hilly part of the 
country. In the course of his llight he came to the 
house of a poor man, whose name was Omeron Came- 
rcn. The landlord welcomed his guest with the ut- 
most kindness; but, as there was no meat in the house, 
he told his wife he would directly kill Mool Odhar, t 
to feed the stranger. " Kill our only cow !" said she, 
" our own atid our little children's principal support !" 
More attentive, however, to the present call for hospi- 
tality, than to the remonstrances of his wife, or the 
future exigencies of his family, he killed the cow. 
The best and teudcrest parts were immediately roasted 

t Mool Odhar, i, e. tho brown humble cow. 



before the fire, and plenty of innirich, or Highland 
soup, prepared to conclude their meal. — The whole fa- 
mily and their guest ate heartily, and the evening was 
spent as usual, in telling tales and singing songs be- 
side a cheerful fire. Bed-time came ; Omeron brushed 
the hearth, spread the cow hide upon it, and desired 
the stranger to lie down. The Earl wrapped his plaid 
about him, and slept sound on the hide, whilst the 
family betook themselves to rest in a comer of the 
same room. 



Next morning they had a plentiful breakfast, and at 
his departure his guest asked Cameron, if he knew 
whom he had entertained? ♦* You may probably," 
answered he, *' be one of the king's officers ; but who- 
ever you are, you came here in distress, and here it 
was my duty to protect you. To what my cottage 
afforded, you are most welcome." — " Your guest, 
then," replied the other, " is the Earl of Mar : and if 
hereafter you fall into any misfortune, fail not to come 
to the castle of Kildrummie." — " My blessing be with 
you I noble stranger," said Omeron; " if I am ever in 
distress, you shall soon see me." 

The royal army was soon after re-assembled ; and the 
insurgents, finding themselves unable to make head 
against it, dispersed. The M 'Donalds, however, got 
notice that Omeron had been the Earl's host, and 
forced him to fly the country. He came with his wife 
and children to the gate of Kildrummie Castle, and 
required admittance with a confidence which hardly 
corresponded with his habit and appearance. The 
porter told him rudely, his Lordship was at dinner, and 
must not be disturbed. He became noisy and impor- 
tunate : at last hit; name was announced. Upon hear- 
ing that it was Omeron Cameron, the Earl started from 
his seat, and is said to have exclaimed in asortof poe. 
tical stanza, '• I was a night in his house, and fared 
most i)lentifully ; but naked of clothes was my bed. 
Omeron from Breugach is an excellent fellow !" He 
was introduced into the great hall, and received with 
the welcome he deserved. Upon hearing how he had 
been treated, the Earl gave him a four merk land near 
the c;.stlc ; and it is said there are still in the country 
a number of Camerons descended of this Highland 
£uma;us> 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



273 



failed. Proh mirum / The driver was incor- 
ruptible. Your verses have given us much 
delight, and I think will produce their proper 
effect.* They produced a powerful one im- 
mediately ; for the morning after I read them, 
we all set out in procession to the Bruar, where 
none of the ladies had been these seven or 
eight years, and again enjoyed them there. 
The passages we most admired are the descrip- 
tion of the dying trouts. Of the high fall 
*' twisting strength," is a happy picture of the 
upper part. The characters of the birds. 
** mild and mellow," is the thrush itself. The 
benevolent anxiety for their happiness and safe- 
ty I highly approve. The two stanzas be- 
ginning " Here haply too"" — darkly dashing is 
most descriptively Ossianic. 



Here I cannot deny myself the pleasure of 
mentioning an incident which happened yester- 
day at the Bruar. As we passed the door of a 
most miserable hovel, an old woman curtsied 
to us with looks of such poverty, and such con- 
tentment, that each of us involuntarily gave lior 
some money. She was astonished, and in the 
confusion of her gratitude, invited us in. IVIiss 
C. and I, that we might not hurt her delicacy, 
entered — but, good God, what wretchedness ! 
It was a cow-house — her own cottage had been 
burnt last winter. The poor old creature stood 
perfectly silent — looked at Miss C. then to the 
money, and burst into tears — Miss C. joined 
her, and, with a vehemence of sensibility, took 
out her purse, and emptied it into the old wo- 
man's lap. What a charming scene ! — A sweet 
accomplished girl of seventeen in so angelic a 
situation ! Take your pencil and 2>aint her in 

your most glowing tints Hold her up amidst 

the darkness of this scene of human woe, to the 
icy dames that flaunt through the gaieties of life, 
without ever feeling one generous, one great 
emotion. 

Two days after you left us, I went to Tay- 
mouth. [It is a charming place, but still I 
thiidf art has been too busy. Let me be your 
Cicerone fqr two days at Dunkeld, and you 
will acknowledge that in the beauties of naked 
nature we are not surpassed. The loch, the 
Gothic arcade, and the fall of the hermitage, 
gave me most delight. But I think the last 
has not been taken proper advantage of. The 
hermitage is too much in the common-place 
style. Every body expects the couch, the book- 

fress, and the hairy gown. The Duke's idea 
think better. A rich and elegant apartment 
is an excellent contrast to a scene of Alpine 
horrors. 

I must now beg your permission (unless you 
liave some other design) to have your verses 
printed. They appear to me extremely cor- 



* " The humble petition of. Bruar- Water to the 
Duke of Athole." 



rect, and some particular stanzas would give 
universal pleasure. Let me know, however, if 
you incline to give them any farther touches. 

Were they in some of the public papers, we 
could more easily disseminate them among our 
fiiends, which many of us are anxious to do. 

When you pay your promised visit to the 
Braes of Ochtcrtyre, Mr. and Mrs. Graham of 
Balgowan beg to have the pleasure of conduct- 
ing you to the bower of Bessy Hell and Mary 
Gray, which is now in their possession. The 
Duchess would give any consideration for an- 
other sight of your letter to Dr. Moore ; we 
must fall upon some method of procuring it for 
her. I shall enclose this to our mutual friend 

Dr. B J who may forward it. I shall be 

extremely happy to hear from you at your first 
leisure. Enclose your letter in a cover address- 
ed to the Duke of Athole, Dunkeld. 
God bless you, 

J W 



No. LH. 



FROM MR. A- 



M- 



sia, iith October, 1787. 

Having just arrived from abroad, 1 had your 
poems put into my hands : the pleasure I re- 
ceived in reading them, has induced me to so- 
licit your liberty to publish them amongst a 
immber of our countrymen in America, (tc 
which place 1 shall shortly return), and where 
they will be a treat of such excellence, that i 
would be an injury to your merit and their feel- 
ing to prevent tlieir appearing in public. 

Receive the following hastily-written lines 
from a well-wisher. 



Fair fa' your pen, my dainty Rob, 

Your leisom way o' writing, 
Whiles, glowring o'er your warks I sob, 

Whiles laugh, whiles downright greeting 
Your sonsie tykes may charm a chiel, 

Their words are wondrous bonny, 
But guid Scotch drink the truth does say 

It is as guid as ony 

Wi' you this day. 

Poor Maille, troth, I'll nae but think. 

Ye did the poor thing wrang. 
To leave her tether'd on the brink 

Of stank sae wide and laug ; 
Her dying words upbraid ye sair. 

Cry fye on your neglect ; 
Guid faith .' gin ye had got play fair. 

This deed had stretch'd your neck 

That mournfu' day. 

But, wae'a me, how dare I fin' faut, 
Wi* sic a wijttsome bardie, 
55 



274 

Wha great an' sma's begun to daut. 

And tak' him by the gardie ; 
It sets na ony lawland chiel, 

Like you to verse or rhyme. 
For few like you can fley the de'il, 

And skelp auld wither'd Time 
On ony day. 

It's fair to praise ilk canty callan, 

Be he of purest fame, 
If he but tries to raise as Allan, 

Auld Scotia's bonny name ; 
To you, therefore, in humble rhyme, 

Better 1 canna gi'e, 
And tho' it's but a swatch of thine, 

Accept these lines frae me, 

Upo' this day. 

Frae Jock o' Groats to bonny Tweed, 

Frae that e'en to the line, 
In ilka place where Scotsmen bleed, 

There shall your hardship shine ; 
Ilk honest chiel wha reads your buick, 

Will there aye meet a brither. 
He lang may seek, and lang will look. 

Ere he fin' sic anither 

On ony day. 

Feart that ray cruicket verse should spairge 

Some wark of wordie mak', 
I'se nae mair o' this head enlarge. 

But now my farewell tak' : 
Lang may you live, lang may you write, 

And sing like English Welschell, 
This prayer I do myself indite, 

From yours still, A M , 

This very day. 



BURNS' WORKS. 



up the ghost of Joseph M'D. to infuse into oar 
bard a portion of his enthusiasm for those ne- 
glected airs, which do not suit the fastidious 
' musicians of the present hour. But if it be 
true that Corelli (whom I looked on as the 
Homer of music) is out of date, it is no proof 
of their taste ;■ — this, however, is going out of 
my province. You can show Mr. Burns the 
manner of singing these same luinigs ; and, if 
he can humour it in words, I do not despair of 
seeing one of them sung upon the stage, in the 
original style, round a napkin. 

I am very sorry we are likely to meet so sel- 
dom va. this neighbourhood. It is one of the 
greatest drawbacks that attends obscurity, that 
one has so few opportunities of cultivating ac- 
quaintances at a distance. I hope, however, 
some time or other, to have the pleasure of 
beating up your quarters at Erskine, and of 
hauling you away to Paisley, &c. ; meanwhile 
I beg to be remembered to Messrs. Boog and 
Mylne. 

If Mr. B. goes by , give him a billet on 

our friend Mr. Stuart, who, 1 presume, does 
not dread the frown of his diocesan. 
I am. Dear Sir, 
Your most obedient humble servant, 

J. RAMSAY. 



No. Lin. 
FROM MR. J. RAMSAY, 

TO THE 

REVEREND W. YOUNG, at Erskine. 

BEAR SIR, Ochtert7jre, 22d Oct. 1787. 

Allow me to introduce Mr. Burns, whose 
poems, I dare say, have given you much plea- 
sure. Upon a personal acquaintance, I doubt 
not, you will relish the man as much as his 
works, in which there is a rich vein of intel 
lectual ore. He has heard some of our High 
land luiniys or songs played, which delighted 
him so much that he has made words to one 
or two of them, which will render these more 
popular. As he has thought of being in your 
quarter, I am persuaded you will not think it 
labour lost to indulge the poet of nature with a 
sample of those sweet artless melodies, which 
only want to be married (in Milton's phrase) 
to congenial words. I wish we could conjure 



No. LIV. 
FROM MR. RAMSAY, 

TO 

DR. BLACKLOCK. 

DEAR SIR, Ochtertyre, 27th Oct. 1787." 

I RECEIVED yours by Mr. Burns, and give 
you many thanks for giving me an opportunity 
of conversing with a man of his cahbre. He 
will, I doubt not, let you know what passed be- 
tween us on the subject of my hints, to which I 
have made additions, in a letter sent him t'other 
day to your care. 



You may tell Mr. Burns, when you see him, 
that Colonel Edmonstoune told me t'other day, 
that his cousin, Colonel George Crawford, was 
no poet, but a great singer of songs ; but that 
his eldest brother Robert (by a former marriage) 
had a great turn that way, having written the 
words of The Sush aboon Traquair, and 
Tweedside. That the Mary to whom it was 
addressed was Mary Stewart of the Castlemilk 
family, afterwards wife of Mr. John Relches. 
The Colonel never saw Robert Crawford, though 
he was at his burial fifty-five years ago. He 
was a pretty young man, and had lived long ia 
France. Lady Ankerville is his niece, and may 
know more of his poetical vein. An epitaph- 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



275 



monger like me might moralize upon the vanity 
of life, and the vanity of those sweet effusions. 
— But I have hardly room to offer my best com- 
pliments to Mrs. Blacklock ; and I am, 
Dear Doctor, 
Your most obedient humble servant, 
J. RAMSAY 



No. LV. 



FROM MR. JOHN MURDOCH. 

MY DEAR SIR, London, 2Sth Oct. 1787. 

As my friend, Mr. Brown, is going from this 
place to your neighbourhood, I embrace the op- 
portunity of telling you that I am yet alive, to- 
lerably well, and always in expectation of being 
better. By the much- valued letters before me, I 
see that it was my duty to have given you this in- 
telligence about three years and nine months ago ; 
and have nothing to allege as an excuse but that 
we poor, busy, bustling bodies In London, are so 
much taken up with the various pursuits in which 
we are here engaged, that we seldom think of 
any person, creature, place, or thing, that is ab- 
sent. But this is not altogether the case with 
me ; for I often think of you, and Hornie, and 
Jiussel, and an unfathomc.d depth, and lowan 
hrunstane, all in the same minute, although you 
and they are (as I suppose) at a considerable dis- 
tance. I flatter myself, however, with the pleas- 
ing thought, that you and I shall meet some 
time or other either in Scotland or England. 
If ever you come hither, you will have the satis- 
faction of seeing your poems relished by the Ca 
ledonians in London, full as much as they can 
be by those of Edinburgh. We frequently re- 
peat some of your verses in our Caledonian so- 
ciety ; and you may believe, that I am not a 
little vain that I have had some share in culti- 
vating such a genius. I was not absolutely cer- 
tain that you were the author, till a few days a- 
go, when I made a visit to Mrs. Hill, Dr. 
M'Comb's eldest daughter, who lives in town, 
and who told me tiiat she was informed of it by 
a letter from her sister in Edinburgh, with whom 
you had been in company when in that capital. 

Pray let me know if you have any intention 
of visiting this huge, overgrown nietroj)olis ? It 
would afford matter for a large poem. Here you 
would have an opportunity of indulging your 
vein in the study of mankind, perhaps to a great- 
er degree than in any city upon the face of the 
globe ; for the inhabitants of London, as you 
know, are a collection of all nations, kindreds, 
and tongues, who make it, as it were, the centre 
of their commerce. 



took such uncommon pains to instil into your 
minds from your earliest infancy ! May you live 
as h(! did ! if you do, you can never be unhappy. 
I feel myself grown serious all at once, and af- 
fected in a manner I cannot describe. I shall 
only add, that it is one of the greatest pleasures 
I promise myself before I die, that of seeing the 
family of a man whose memory I revere more 
than that of any person that ever I was ac- 
quainted with. 

I am, my dear Friend, 

Yours sincerely, 

JOHN MCJRDOCH. 



No. LVI. 



FROM MR. 



SIR, Gordon Castle, Slst October, 17S7. 

If you were not sensible of your fault as well 
as of your loss in leaving this place so suddenly, 
I should condemn you to starve upon cauld kail 
for ae towmont at least ; and as for Dick La- 
tine,* your travelling companion, without ban- 
ning him wV a' the curses contained in your let- 
ter, (which he'll no value a bawbee), I should 
give him nought but Stra bogie castocks to chew 
for sax ouks, or aye until he was as sensible of 
his error as you seem to be of yours. 



Present my respectful compliments to Mrs. 
Burns, to my dear friend Gilbert, and all the 
rest of her amiable children. May the Father 
of the universe bless you all with those princi- 
ples and dispositions that the best of parents 



Your song I showed without producing the 
thor ; and it was judged by the Duchess to be 
the production of Dr. Beattie. I sent a copy of 
it, by her Grace's desire, to a Mrs. IM'Pherson 
in Badenoch, who sings Morag and all other 
Gaelic songs in great perfection. I have re- 
corded it likewise, by Lady Charlotte's desire, 
in a book belonging to her ladyship, where it Is 
in company with a great many other poems and 
verses, some of the writers of which are no less 
eminent for their political than for their poetical 
abilities. When the Duchess was informed that 
you were the author she wished you had written 
the verses in Scotch. 

Any letter directed to me. hero will come to 
hand safely, and, if sent under the Duke's cover, 
it will likewise come free ; that is, as long as the 
Duke is in this country. 

I am, Sir, yours sincerely. 



No. LVIL 

FROM THE REV. JOHN SKINNER. 

SIR, Linshart, Mtk Nov. 1787. 

Your kind return without date, but of post- 
mark October 25th, came to my hand only this 
day ; and, to testify my punctuality to my po- 



* Mr. NicoU. 



276 



BURNS' WORKS. 



ctic engagement, I sit down immediately to an- 
swer it in kind. Your acknowledgment of my 
puor but just encomiums on your surprising ge- 
nius, and your opinion of my rhyming excur- 
sions, are both, I think, by far too high. The 
diiferenee between our two tracts of education 
and ways of life is entirely in your fiivour, and 
gives you the preference every manner of way. 
I know a classical education will not create a 
versifying taste, but it mightily improves and as- 
sists it ; and though, where both these meet, 
there may sometimes be ground for approbation, 
yet where taste appears single, as it were, and 
neither cramped nor supported by acquisition, 
I will always sustain the justice of its prior claim 
to applause. A small portion of taste, this way, 
I have had almost from childhood, especially in 
the old Scottish dialect : and it is as old a thing 
as I remember, my fondness for Christ kirk o' 
the Green, which I had by heart ere I was 
twelve years of age, and which, some years ago, 
I attempted to turn into Latin verse. While I 
was young, I dabbled a good deal in these things ; 
but, on getting the black gown, I gave it pretty 
much over, till my daughters grew up, who, be- 
ing all good singers, plagued me for words to 
some of their favourite tunes, and so extorted 
these effusions, which have made a public appear- 
ance beyond my expectations, and contrary to 
my intentions, at the same time that I hope there 
is nothing to be found in them uncharacter- 
istic, or unbecoming the cloth, which I would 
always wish to see respected. 

As to the assistance you propose from me in 
the undertaking you are engaged in, * I am sorry 
I cannot give it so far as I could wish, and you, 
perhaps, expect. My daughters, who were my 
only intelligencers, are all /or/s familiate, and 
the old woman their- mother has lost that taste. 
There are two from my own pen, which I might 
give you, if worth the while. One to the old 
Scotch tune of Dumbarton's Drums. 

The other perhaps you have met with, as 
your noble friend the Duchess has, I am told, 
heard of it. It was squeezed out of me by a 
brother parson in her neighbourhood, to accom- 
modate a new Highland reel for the JMarquis's 
birth- day, to the stanza of 

*' Tune your fiddles, tune them sweetly," &c. 

If this last answer your purpose, you may 
have it from a brother of mine, Mr. James Skin- 
ner, writer in Edinburgh, who, I believe, can 
give the music too. 

There is another humorous thing, I have heard 
said to be done by the Catholic priest Geddes, 
and which hit my taste much : 

" There was a wee wifeikie was coming frae the 

fair, 
Had gotten a little draplkie, which bred her 

meikle tare ; 



It took upo' the wifie's heart,, and she began to 

spew, 
And quo' the wee wifeikie, I wish I binna fou, 
I tcish, 8fc. Sfc. 

I have heard of another new composition, by 
a young ploughman of ray acquaintance, that I 
am vastly pleased with, to the tune of T^e hu- 
mours of Glen, which I fear won't do, as the 
music, I am told, is of Ii'ish original. I have 
mentioned these, such as they are, to show my 
readiness to oblige you, and to contribute my 
mite, if I could, to the patriotic work you have 
in hand, and which I wish all success to. You 
have only to notify your mind, and what you 
want of the above shall be sent you. 

JMeantirae, while you are thus publicly, I 
may say, employed, do not sheath your own 
proper and piercing weapon. From what I 
have seen of yours already, I am inclined to 
hope for much good. One lesson of virtue and 
morality, delivered in your amusing style, and 
from such as you, will operate more than dozens 
would do from such as me, who shall be told it 
is our employment, and be never more minded : 
whereas, from a pen like yours, as being one of 
the many, what comes will be admired. Ad- 
miration will produce regard, and regard will 
leave an impression, especially ivhen example 
goes along. 

Now binna saying I'm ill bred. 
Else, by my troth, I'll not be glad 
For cadgers, ye have heard it said, 

And sic like fry. 
Maun aye be harland in their trade, 

And sae maun I. 

Wishing you from my poet-pen, all success, 
and in my other character, all happiness and 
heavenly direction, 

I remain, with esteem. 

Your sincere friend, 

JOHN SKINNER. 



* " A plan of publishing a complete collection of 
Scottish Songs," &c 



No. LVHI. 

FROM MRS. ROSS. 

SIR, Kilravock Castle, SOth Nov. 1787. 

I HOPE you will do me the justice to helieye» 
that it was no defect in gratitude for your, 
punctual performance of your parting promise, 
that has made me so long in acknowledging it, 
but merely the difficulty I had in getting the 
Highland songs you wished to have, accurately 
noted ; they are at last enclosed : but how shall 
I convey along with them those graces they ac- 
quired from the melodious voice of one of the 
fair spirits of the hill of Kildrummie ! These I 
must leave to your imagination to supply. It 
has powers sufficient to transport you to her 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



277 



side, to recall her accents, and to make tliem 
still vibrate in the ears of memory. To her I 
am indebted for getting the eneloscd notes. 
They are clothed with " Ihouyhts that breathe, 
and words that burn." These, however, being 
in an unkitoicn tongue to you, you must again 
have recourse to that same fertile imagination 
of yours to interpret them, and suppose a lover's 
description of the beauties of an adored mistress 
— why did I say unknown ? The language of 
love is an universal one, that seems to have 
escaped the confusion of Bal>el, and to be un- 
derstood by all nations. 

I rejoice to find that you were ])leased with 
so many things, persons, and places in your 
northern tour, because it leads me to hope you 
may be induced to revisit them again. That 

the old castle of K k, and its inhabitants, 

were airiongst these, adds to my satisfaction. I 
am even vain enough to admit your very flat- 
tering application of the line of Addison's ; at 
any rate, allow me to believe that " friendship 
will maintain the ground she has occupied" in 
both our hearts, in spite of absence, and that, 
when we do meet, it will be as acquaintance of 
a score of years standing ; and on this footing, 
consider me as interested in the future course of 
your fame, so splendidly commenced. Any 
communications of the progress of your muse 
will be received with gieat gratitude, and the 
fire of your genius will have power to warm, 
even us, frozen sisters of the north. 

The friends of K k and K e 

unite in cordial regards to you. When you in- 
cline to figure either in your idea, suppose some 
of us reading y(uir |)oems, and some of us singing 
your songs, and my little Hugh looking at your 
picture, and you'll seldom be wrong. We re- 
member 3Ir. N. with as much good will as we 
do any body, who hurried INIr. liurns from us. 

Farewell, Sir, I can only contribute the 
widow's mite to the esteem and admiration ex- 
cited by your merits and genius, but this I give 
as she did, with all my heart — being sincerely 
yours, E. R. 



friends of Job, of affliction-bearing memory, 
when they sat down with him seven days and 
seven niglits, and spake not a word. 



No. LIX. 



TO 



- DALRYMPLE, Esq. 
ORANGEFIELD. 



OF 



HEAR SIR, Edinbvryh, 1787. 

I SUPPOSE the devil is so elated with his suc- 
cess with you, that he is determined by a coup 
de mniti to complete his purposes on you all at 
once, in making you a poet. I broke open the 
letter you sent me ; hummed over the rhymes ; 
and, as 1 saw they were extempore, said to my- 
self they were very well : but when I saw at 
the bottom a name that I shall ever value with 
grateful respect, " I gapit wide but naething 
spak." I was nearly as much struck as the 



I am naturally of a superstitious cast, and as 
soon as my wonder-scared imagination regained 
its consciousness and resjimed its functions, I 
cast about what this mania of yours might por- 
tend. My foreboding ideas had the wide stretch 
of possibility ; and several events, great in their 
magnitude, and important in their consequences, 
occurred to my fancy. The downfal of the 
conclave, or the crushing of the cork rumps ; a 

ducal coronet to Lord George O and the 

protestant interest ; or St. Peter's keys to . . 

You want to know how I come on. I am 
just in statu quo, or, not to insult a gentleman 
with my Latin, " in auld use and wont." The 
noble Earl of Glencairn took me by the hand 
to-day, and interested himself in my concerns, 
with a goodness like that benevolent being, 
whose image he so richly bears. He is a 
stronger proof of the immortality of the soul, 
than any that jdiilosophy ever produced. A 
mind like his can never die. Let the worship- 
ful squire, H. L. or the reverend Mass J. M. 
go into their primitive nothing. At best they 
are but ill-digested lumps of chaos, only one of 
them strongly tinged with ])ituminous particles 
and sulphureous effluvia. But my noble pa- 
tron, eternal as the heroic swell of magnanimi- 
ty, and the generous throb of benevolence, shall 
look on with princely eye at " the war of ele- 
ments, the wreck of matter, and the crash of 
worlds." 



The following fragments are all that now ex- 
ist of twelve or fourteen of the finest letters 
that Burns ever wrote. In an evil hour, the 
originals were thrown into the fire by the 
late IMrs, Adair of Scarborough ; the Char- 
lotte so often mentioned in this correspon- 
dence, and the lady to whom " The Hanks 
of the Devon" is addressed. E. 

No. LX. 

TO MISS MARGARET CHALMERS, 

(now MRS. HAV, OF EDINBURGH). 

Sept. 26, 1787. 
I SEND Charlotte the first number of the 
songs ; I would not wait for the second num- 
ber ; I hate delays in little marks of friend- 
ship, as I hate dissimulation in the language of 
the heart. I am determined to pay Charlotte 
a poetic compliment, if I could hit on some 
glorious old Scotch air, in number second.* 



» Of the Scots Musical Museum. 



278 



BURNS' WORKS. 



You will see a small attempt on a shred of pa- 
pei' in the book ; but though Dr. Blacklock 
commended it very highly, I am not just satis- 
fied with it myself. I intend to make it de- 
scription of 8ome kind : the whining cant of 
love, except in real passion, and by a masterly 
hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching 
cant of old Father Smeaton, Whig-minister at 
Kilmauis. Darts, flames, cupids, loves, graces, 
and uU that farrago, are just a JNIauchline 
. — a senseless rabble. 

1 got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight 
from the old, venerable author of Tullochgo- 
rura, John of Badcuyon, kc. I suppose you 
know he is a deigyman. It is by fiir the finest 
poetic compliment I ever got. I will send you 
a copy of it. 

I go on Thursday or Friday to Dumfries to 
wait on Mv, Miller about his farms — Do tell 
that to Lady M'Kenzie, that she may give me 
credit for a little wisdom. " I wisdom dwell 
with prudence." What a blessed fire-side ! 
How happy should I be to pass a winter even- 
ing under their venerable roof! and smoke a 
pipe of tobacco, or drink water-gruel with them ! 
What solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing 
gravity of phiz ! What sage remarks on the 
good-for-nothing sons and daughters of indis- 
cretion and folly ! And what frugal lessons, as 
we straitened the fire- side circle, on the uses of 
the poker and tongs ! 

JMiss N. is very well, and begs to be remem- 
bered in the old way to you. I used all my 
eloquence, all the jjcrsuasive flourishes of the 
hand, and heart-melting modulation of periods 
in my power, to urge her out to Herveiston, 
but all in vain. IMy rhetoric seems quite to 
have lost its effect on the lovely half of man- 
kind. I have seeu the day — but that is a " tale 
of other vears." — In my conscience I believe 
that my heart has been so oft on fire that it is 
absolutely vitrified. I look on the sex with 
something like the admiration with which I re- 
gard the starry sky in a frosty December night. 
I admire the beauty of the Creator's workman- 
ship ; I am charmed with the wild but grace- 
ful eccentricity of their motions, and — wish 
thera good night. I mean this with respect to 
a certain jiassion ftDut f ai cu Vhonneur cCetre 
Ufi miserable esclave : as for friendship, you 
and Charlotte have given me pleasure, perma- 
nent pleasure, " which the world cannot give, 
nor take away," I hope ; and which will out- 
last the heavens and the earth. 



Without (late. 
I HAVE been at Dumfiies, and at one visit 
more shall be decided about a farm in that coun- 
try. I am rather hopeless in it ; but as my 
brother is an excellent farmer, and is, besides, 
an exceedingly prudent, sober man, (qualities 
which are only a younger brother's fortune in 



our family), I am determined, if my Dumfries 
business fail me, to return into partnership with 
him, and at our leisure take another farm in 
the neighbourhood. I assure you I look for 
high compliments from you and Charlotte on 
this very sage instance of my unfathomable, in- 
comprehensible wisdom. Talking of Charlotte, 
I must tell her that I have to the best of my 
power, paid her a poetic compliment, now com- 
pleted. The air is admirable : true old High- 
land. It was the tune of a Gaelic song which 
an Inverness lady sung me when I was there ; 
and I was so charmed with it that I begged her 
to write me a set of it from her singing ; for it 
had never been set before. I am fixed that it 
shall go in Johnson's next number ; so Char- 
lotte and you need not spend your precious time 
in contradicting me. I won't say the poetry is 
first-rate ; though I am convinced it is very 
well : and, what is n(»t always the case with 
compliments to ladies, it is not only sincere but 
just. 

(Hcrefulhnvs the song of «' The Banks of the 
Devon.") 



Edinburgh, Nov. 2\,\1S1. 
I HAVF. one vexatious fault to the kindly- 
welcome, well filled sheet which I owe to your 
and Charlotte's goodness — it contains too much 
sense, sentiment, and good-spelling. It is im- 
possible that even you two, whom I declare to 
my God, I will give credit for any degree of 
excellence the sex are capable of attaining, it is 
impossible you can go on to correspond at that 
rate ; so like those who, Shenstone says, retire 
because they have made a good speech, I shall 
after a few letters hear no more of you. I in- 
sist that you shall write whatever comes first : 
what you see, what you read, what you hear, 
what you admire, what you dislike, trifles, bag- 
atelles, nonsense ; or to fill up a corner, e'en 
put down a laugh at full length. Now none 
of your polite hints about flattery : I leave that 
to your lovers, if you have or shall have any ; 
though thank heaven I have found at last two 
girls who can be luxuriantly happy in their 
own minds and with one another, without that 
commonly necessary appendage to female bliss, 

A LOVER. 

Charlotte and you are just two favourite rest- 
ing places for my soul in her wanderings through 
the weary, thorny wilderness of this world- 
God knows I am ill-fitted for the struggle : I 
glory in being a Poet, and I want to be thought 
a wise man — I would fondly be generous, and 
I wish to be rich. After all, I am afraid I am 
a lost subject. " Some folk hae a hantle o* 
fauts, an' I'm but a ne'er-do-weel." 

Afternoon, — To close the melancholy reflec- 
tions at the end of last sheet, I shall just add a 
piece of devotion commonly known in Carrick^ 
by the title of the " Wabster's grace." 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



279 



** Some say we're fhieves, and e'en sae are we, 
Some say we lie, and e'en sae do we ! 
Guide forgie us, and 1 hope sae will he ! 
Up and to your looms, lads." 



Edinburgh, Dec. 12, 1787. 

I AM here under the care of a surgeon, with 
a bruised limb extended on a cushion ; and the 
tints of ray mind vyins^ with the livid horror 
preceding a midnight thunder-storm. A drun- 
ken coachman was the cause of the first, and 
incomparably the lightest evil ; misfortune, bo- 
dily constitution, hell and myself, have formed 
a " Quadruple Alliance" to guarantee the other. 
I got my fall on Saturday, and am getting slow- 
ly better. 

I have taken tooth and nail to the bible, and 
am got through the five books of Moses, and 
half way in Joshua. It is really a glorious 
book. I sent for my bookbinder to-day, and 
ordered him to get me an octavo bible in sheets 
the best paper and print in town ; and bind it 
with all the elegance of his craft. 

I would give my best song to my worst ene- 
my, I mean the merit of making it, to have you 
and Charlotte by me. You are angelic crea- 
tures, and would pour oil and wine into my 
wounded spirit. 

I enclose you a proof copy of the " Banks of 
the Devon," which present with my best wishes 
to Charlotte. The " Ochil-hills," you shall 
probably have next week for yourself. None of 
your fine speeches ! 



banners of imagination, whim, caprice, and 
passion ; and the heavy -armed veteran regulars 
of wisdom, prudence and fore-thought, move so 
very, very slow, that I am almost in a state of 
perpetual warfare, and alas ! frequent defeat. 
There are just two creatures that I would envy, 
a horse in his wild state traversing the forests 
of Asia, or an oyster on some of the desert 
shores of Europe. The one has not a wish 
without enjoyment, the other has neither wish 
nor fear. 



Edinburgh, Dec. 19, 1787. 
I BEGIN this letter in answer to yours of the 
I7th current, which is not yet cold since I read 
it. The atmosphere of my soul is vastly clearer 
than when I wrote you last. For the first time, 
yesterday I crossed the room on crutches. It 
would do your heart good too see my banlship, 
not on my poetic, but on my oaken stilts ; 
throwing my best leg with an air ! and with 
as much hilarity in my gait and countenance, 
as a May frog leaping across the newly harrowed 
ridge, enjoying the fragrance of the refreshed 
earth after the long-expected shower ! 



Edinburgh, March 14, 1788. 
I KNOW, my ever dear friend, that you will 
be pleased with the news when I tell you, I 
have at last taken a lease of a farm. Yester- 
night I completed a bargain with Mr. Miller, 
of Dalswinton, for the farm of Ellisland, on the 
banks of the Nith, between five and six miles 
above Dumfries. I begin at Whitsunday to 
build a house, drive lime, &c. and heaven be 
my help ! for it will take a strong effort to 
bring my mind into the routine of business. I 
have discharged all the army of my former pur- 
suits, fiincies and j)leasures ; a motley host ! and 
have literally and strictly retained only the ideas 
of a few friends, which I have incorporated into 
a life-guard. I trust in Dr, Johnson's observa- 
tion, " Where much is attempted, something is 
done." Firmness both in sufferance and exer- 
tion, is a character I would wish to be thought 
to possess ; and have always despised the whin- 
ing yelp of complaint, and the cowardly, feeble 
resolve. 



Poor Miss K. is ailing a good deal this win- 
ter, and begged me to remember her to you the 
first time I wrote you. Surely woman, amiable 
woman, is often made in vain ! Too delicately 
formed for the rougher pursuits of ambition ; 
too noble for the dirt of avarice, and even too 
gentle for the rage of pleasure : formed indeed 
for and highly susceptible of enjoyment and rap- 
ture ; but that enjoyment, alas ! almost wholly 
at the mercy of the caprice, malevolence, stupi- 
dity, or wickedness of an animal at all times 
comparatively unfeeling, and often brutal. 



I can't say I am altogether at my ease when 
I see any where in my path, that meagre, squa- 
lid, famine-faced spectre, poverty ; attended as 
he always is, by iron- fisted oppression, and leer- 
ing contempt; but I have sturdily withstood 
his buffetings many a hard- laboured day already, 
and still my motto is — I dare ! My worst 
enemy is Moimeme. I lie so miserably open to 
the inroads and incursions of a mischievous, 
light-armed, well-mounted banditti, under the 



Mauchline, 1th April, 1788. 
I AM indebted to you and Miss Nimmo for 
letting me know Miss Kenedy. Strange ! how 
apt we are to indulge prgudices in our judg- 
ments of one another ! Even I, who pique my- 
self on my skill in marking characters ; because 
I am too proud of ui)- character as a man, to be 
dazzled in my judgment /or glaring wealth ; and 
too proud of my situation as a poor man to be 
biassed against squalid poverty ; I was unac- 
quainted with Miss K.'svcry uncommon worth. 



280 



BURNS' WORKS. 



I am going on a good deal progressive in mon 
grand hut, the sober science of life. I have 
lately made some sacrifices for which, were I 
viva voce with you to paint the situation and 
recount the circumstances, you would applaud 
me. 



No date. 

Now for that wayward, unfortunate thing, 
myself. I have broke measures with . 
and last week I wrote him a frosty, keen letter. 
He replied in terras of chastisement, and pro- 
mised me upon his honour that I should have 
the account on Monday ; but this is Tuesday, 
and yet I have not heard a word from him. 
God have mercy on me ! a poor d-mned, in- 
cautious, duped, unfortunate fool ! The sport, 
the miserable victim, of rebellious pride ; hypo- 
chondriac imagination, agonizing sensibility, 
and bedlam passions ! 

•* I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like 
to die /" I had lately " a hairbreadth 'scape in 
th' imminent deadly breach" of love too. Thank 
my stars I got off heart-whole, " waur fleyd 
than hurt." — Interruption. 

I have this moment got a hint .... 

I fear I am something 

like — undone — but I hope for the best. Come, 
stubborn pride and unshrinking resolution ! ac- 
company me thiough this, to me, miserable 
world ! You must not desert me ! Your friend- 
ship I think I can count on, though I should 
date my letters from a marching regiment. 
Early in life, and all my life, I reckoned on a 
recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Seriously 
though, life at present presents me with but a 
melancholy path : but — my limb will soon be 
sound, and I shall struggle on. 



get any thing to do. I wanted un but, which 
is a dangerous, an unhappy situation. I got 
this without any hanging on, or mortifying so- 
Hcitation ; it is immediate bread, and though 
poor in comparison of the last eighteen months 
of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all 
my preceding life : besides, the commissioners 
are some of them my acquaintances, and all of 
them ray firm friends. 



To-morrow, 
Edinburgh. 



Edinburgh, Sunday. 
my deal- Madam, I leave 



NO. LXI. 



I have altered all my plans of future life. A 
farm that I could live in, I could not find ; and 
indeed, after the necessary support my brother 
and the rest of the fimiily required, I could not 
venture on farming in that style suitable to my 
feelings. You will condemn me for the next 
step I have taken. I have entered into the ex- 
cise. I stay in the west about three weeks, and 
then return to Edinburgh for six weeks instruc- 
tions ; afterwards, for I get emjiloy instantly, I 
go ou il plait a Dieu, — ct mon Roi. I have 
chosen this, my dear friend, after mature deli- 
beration. The questiou is not at what door of 
fortune's palace shall we enter in ; but what 
doora does she open to us ? I was not likely to 



TO MISS CHALMERS. 

MY DEAR MADAM, Edinburgh, Dec. 1787. 

I JUST now have read yours. The poetic 
compliraents I pay cannot be misunderstood. 
They are neither of them so particular as to 
point you out to the world at large ; and the 
circle of your acquaintances will allow all I 
have said. Besides I have complimented you 
chiefly, almost solely, on your mental charms. 
Shall I be plain with you ? I will j so look to it. 
Personal attractions. Madam, you have much 
above par ; wit, understanding, and worth, you 
possess in the first class. This is a cursed flat 
way of telling you these truths, but let me hear 
no more of your sheepish timidity. I know 
the world a little. I know what they will say 
of my poems ; by second sight I suppose ; for 
I am seldom out in my conjectures ; and you 
may believe me, my dear Madam, I would not 
run any risk of hurting you by an ill-judged 
compliment. I wish to show to the world, the 
odds between a poet's friends and those of sim- 
ple prosemen. More for your information both 
the pieces go in. One of them, " Where brav- 
ing all the winter's harms," is already set — 
the tune is Neil Gow's Lamentation for Aber- 
carney ; the other is to be set to an old High- 
land air in Daniel Dow's " collection of ancient 
Scots music ; the name is Ha a ChaiUich air 
mo Dheidh. My treacherous memory has for- 
got every circumstance about Les Incas, only 

I think you mentioned them as being in C 's 

possession. I shall ask him about it. I am 
afraid the song of " Somebody" will come too 
late — as I shall, for certain, leave town in a 
week for Ayrshire, and from that to Dumfries, 
but there my hopes are slender. I leave my 
direction in town, so any thing, wherever I am, 
will reach me. 

I saw yom-'s to it is not too severe, 

nor did he take it amiss. On the contraiy, 
like a whipt spaniel, he talks of being with you 

in the Christmas days. Mr. has given 

him the invitation, and he is determined to ac- 
cept of it. O selfishness! he owns in his so- 
ber moments, that from his own volatility of 
inclination, the circumstances in which he is si- 
tuated and his knowledge of his father's dispo- 
sitioa, — the whole affair is chimerical — yet he 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



281 



will gratify an idle penchant at the enormous, 
cruel expense of perhaps ruining the peace of 
the very woman for whom he professes the ge- 
nerous passion of love ! He is a gentleman in 
his mind and manners, tant pis ! — He is a 
volatile school-boy : the heir of a man's for- 
tune who well knows the value of two times 
two ! 

Perdition seize them and their fortunes, be- 
fore they should make the amiable, the lovely 

the derided object of their purse-proud 

contempt. 

I am doubly happy to hear of Mrs. 



recovery, because I really thought all was over 
with her. There are days of pleasure yet a- 
waiting her. 

•' " As I cam in by Glenap 

I met with an aged woman ; 
She bade me chear up my heart. 
For the best o' my days was coming." 



No. LXII. 
TO MISS M 



-N. 



Saturday Noon, No. 2, -S'^. James's Sqr. 
New- Town, Edinburgh. 
"^ Here have I sat, my dear Madam, in the 
stony attitude of perplexed study for fifteen vex- 
atious minutes, my head askew, bending over 
the intended card ; ray fixed eye insensible to 
the very light of day poured around ; my pen- 
dulous goose-feather, loaded with ink, hanging 
over the future letter ; all for the important 
purpose of writing a complimentary card to ac- 
company your trinket. 

Compliments is such a miserable Greenland 
expression ; lies at such a chilly polar distance 
from the torrid zone of my constitution, that I 
cannot, for the very soul of me, use it to any 
person for whom I have the twentieth part of 
the esteem, every one must have for you who 
knows you. 

As I leave town in three or four days, I can 
give myself the pleasure of calling for you only 
for a minute. Tuesday evening, sometime about 
seven, or after, I shall wait on you, for your 
fai'ewell commands. 

The hinge of your box, I put into the hands 
of the proper Connoisseur. The broken glass, 
likewise, went under review ; but deliberative 
wisdom thought it would too much endanger 
the whole fabric. 

I am, dear Madam, 

With all sincerity of enthusiasm, 
Your very humble Servant. 



No. Lxni. 

TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE, Edinburgh. 

Edinburgh, Sunday Morning, 
Nov. 23, 1787. 

I BEG, ray dear Sir, you would not make 
any appointment to take us to 3Ir. Ainslie's to- 
night. On looking over my engagements, con- 
stitution, present state of my health, some little 
vexatious soul concerns, &c. I find I can't sup 
abroad to-night. 

I shall be in to-day till one o'clock if you have 
a leisure hour. 

You will think it romantic when I tell you, 
that I find the idea of your friendship almost 
necessary to my existence. — You assume a pro- 
per length of face in my bitter hours of blue- 
devilism, and you laugh fully up to my highest 
wishes at my good things. — I don't know, upon 
the whole, if you are one of the first fellows ia 
God's world, but you are so to me. I tell you 
this just now in the conviction that some in- 
equalities in my temper and manner may per- 
haps sometimes make you suspect that I am not 
60 warmly as I ought to be 

Your fiiend. 



No. LXIV. 

TO JOHN BALLANTINE, Esq, 

While here I sit, sad and solitary, l»y the 
side of a fire in a little country inn, and drying 
my wet clothes, in pops a poor fellow of a sodger 
and tells me he is going to Ayr. By heavens I 
say I to myself, with a tide of good spirits which 
the magic of that sound, Auld Toon s' Ayr, 
conjured up, I will send my last song to Mr. 
Ballantine. — Here it is — 

( The first sketch of " Ye Banks and Braes o* 
Bonnie Doon.") 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

No. LXV. 
FROM THE POET TO DR. MOORE, 

GIVIKG A SKETCH OF HiS LIFE. 

SIR, Mauchline, 2d Aug. 1787. 

For some months past I have been ramb- 
ling over the country ; but I am now confined 
with some lingering complaints, originating, is 
I take it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits 
a little in this miserable fog of ennui, I have ta- 
ken a whim to give you a history of myself. 
My name has made gome little noise ia this coun- 
56 



282 



BURNS' WORKS. '^ 



try ; you have done me the honour to interest 
yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think 
a faithful account of what character of a man I 
am, and how I came by that character, may per- 
haps amuse you in an idle moment. I will give 
you an honest narrative; though T know it will 
be often at niv own expense ; — for I assure you, 
Sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, ex- 
cept in the trifling afi"air of wisdom, I some- 
times think I resemble, — I have, I say, like him, 
turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and, 
like him too, frequently shaken hands with their 
intoxicating friendship. . . . After you 
have perused these pages, should you think them 
trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell 
you, that the poor author wrote them under some 
twitching qualms of conscience, arising from a 
suspicion that he was doing what he ought not 
to do ; a predicament he has more than once 
been in before. 

I have not the most distant pretensions to 
assume that character which the pye-coated 
guardians of escutcheons call a Gentleman. When 
at Edinburgh last winter, I got acquainted in 
the Herald's Ofllice ; and, looking through that 
granaiy of honours, I there found almost every 
name in the kingdom ; but for me, 

" JMy ancient but ignoble blood 

Has crept through scoundrels ever since the 
flood." 

Gules, purpure, argent, &c. quite disowned me, 
My father was of the north of Scotland, the 
son of a farmer, and was thrown by early mis- 
fortunes on the world at large ; where, after many 
years wanderings and sojouruings, he picked up 
a pretty large quantity of observation and expe- 
rience, to which I am indebted for most of my 
little pretensions to wisdom. — I have met with 
hw who understood men, their mariners, and 
their ways, equal to him ; but stubborn, ungain- 
ly integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irasci- 
bility, are disqualifying circumstances ; conse- 
quently I was born a very poor man's son. For 
the first six or seven years of my life, my fa- 
ther was a gardener to a worthy gentleman of 
small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr. Had 
he continued in that station, I must have march- 
ed oflF to be one of the little underlings about a 
fcirm -house ; but it was his dearest wish and 
prayer to have it in his power to keep his chil- 
dren under his own eye till they could discern 
between good and evil ; so, with the assistance 
of his generous master, my father ventured on 
a small farm on his estate. At those years 
I was by no means a favourite with any body. 
I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, 
a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, 
and an enthusiastic idiot piety. I say idiot piety, 
because I was then but a child. Though it cost 
the schoolmaster some thrashings, 1 made an ex- 
cellent English scholar ; and by the time I was 
ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in sub- 
stantives, verbs, and participles. In my infaat 



and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old 
woman who resided in the family, remarkable 
for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. 
She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the 
country of tales and songs concerning devils, 
ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, 
spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead -lights, wraiths, 
apparitions, cantrips, giants, enchanted towers, 
dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated 
the latent seeds of poetry ; but had so strong an 
effect on my imagination, that to this hour, iu 
my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp 
loek-out in suspicious places ; and though no- 
body can be more sceptical than I am in such 
matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy 
to shake of these idle terrors. The earliest com- 
position that I recollect taking pleasure in, was 
Tlie Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's, 
beginning. How are thy Servants blest, O 
Lord ! I particularly remember one half-stanza 
which was music to my boyish ears — 

" For though on dreadful whirls we hung 
High on the broken wave — " 

I met with these pieces in Mason's English 
Collection, one of my school-books. The two 
first books I ever read in private, and which 
gave me more pleasure than any two books I 
ever read since, were. The Life of Hannibal, 
and The History of Sir William Wallace. 
Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn, that 
I used to strut iu raptures up and down after the 
recruiting drum and bag-pipe, and wish myself 
tall enough to be a soldier ; while the story of 
Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice into my 
veins, which will boil along there till the flood- 
gates of life shut iu eternal rest. 

Polemical divinity about this time was put- 
ting the country half-mad ; and I, ambitious of 
shining in conversation parties on Sundays, be- 
tween sermons, at funerals, &c. used, a few years 
afterwards, to puzzle Calvinism with so muck 
heat and indiscretion, that I raised a hue and cry 
of heresy against me, which has not ceased to 
this hour. 

My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage 
to me. My social dii^position, when not check- 
ed by some modifications of spirited pride, was, 
like our chatechism-definition of infinitude, 
loithout bounds or limits. I formed several con- 
nections with other younkers who possessed su- 
perior advantages, the youngling actors, who 
were busy in the rehearsal of parts in which they 
were shortly to appear on the stage of life, 
where, alas ! I m as destined to drudge behind 
the scenes. It is not commonly at this green 
age that our young gentry have a just sense of 
the immense distance between them and their 
ragged play-fellows. It takes a few dashes into 
the world, to give the young great man that pro- 
per, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, 
insignificant, stupid devils, the mechanics and 
peasantry around him, who were perhaps bora 
in the same village. My young superiors never 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



283 



insulted the clouterly appearance of my plough- 
boy carcass, the two extremes of which were of- 
ten exposed to all the inclemencies of all the sea- 
sons. They would give me stray volumes of 
books : among them, even then, I could pick up 
some observations ; and one, whose heart I am 
sure not even the Munny Begum scenes have 
tainted, helped me to a little French, Parting 
with these my young friends and benefactors, as 
they occasionally went oflF for the East or West 
Indies, was often to me a sore affliction j but I 
was soon called to more serious evils. My fa- 
ther's generous master died ; the farm proved a 
ruinous bargain ; and, to clench the misfortune, 
we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat for 
the picture I have drawn of one in my Tale of 
Twa Dogs. My father was advanced in life 
when he married ; I was the eldest of seven 
children ; and he, worn out by early hardships, 
was unfit for labour. My father's spirit was 
soon irritated, but not easily broken. There was 
afi'eedom in his lease in two years more ; and to 
weather these two years, we retrenched our ex- 
penses. We lived very poorly : I was a dexter- 
ous ploughman, for my age ; and the next eldest 
to me was a brother (Gilbert) who could drive 
the plough very well, and help me to thrash the 
corn. A novel writer might perhaps have view- 
ed these scenes with some satisfaction ; but so 
did not I ; my indignation yet boils at the recol- 
lection of the s 1 factor's insolent threa- 
tening letters, which used to set us all in tears. 
This kind of life — the cheerless gloom of a 
hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley- 
slave, brought me to my sixteenth year ; a lit- 
tle before which period I first committed the sin 
of Rhyme. You know our country custom of 
coupling a man and woman together as partners 
in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth au- 
tumn my partner was a bewitching creature a 
year younger than myself. My scarcity of 
English denies me the power of doing her jus- 
tice in that language ; but you know the Scot- 
tish idiom — she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. 
In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, 
initiated me in that delicious passion, which, in 
spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, 
and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the 
first of human joys, our dearest blessing here 
below ! How she caught the contagion, I can- 
not tell : you medical people talk much of in- 
fection from breathing the same air, the touch, 
&c. ; but I never expressly said I loved her. 
Indeed, I did not know myself why I hked so 
much to loiter behind with her, when return- 
ing in the evening from our labours ; why the 
tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill 
like an ^olian harp ; and particularly why my 
pulse beat such a furious ratan when I looked 
and fingered over her little hand to pick out the 
cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her 
other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly ; 
and it was her favourite reel, to which I at- 
tempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. 
I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that I 



could make verses like printed ones, composed 
by men who had Greek and L itin ; but my 
girl suag a song, which was said to be com- 
posed by a small country laird's son, on one of his 
father's maids, with whom he was in love ; and I 
saw no reason why 1 might nut ihyuie as well as 
he ; for, exceptinj^ that ho couhl smear sheep, and 
cast peats, his father living iu the moor-lands 
he had no more scholar-craft thau myself. 

Thus with me began love and poetry ; 
which at times have been my only, and till 
within the last twelve months, have been my 
highest enjoyment. My father struggled on 
till he reached the freedom in his lease, when 
he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles 
farther in the country. The nature of the 
bargain he made was such as to throw a little 
ready money into his hands at the commence- 
ment of his lease ; otherwise the affair would 
have been impracticable. For four years we 
lived comfortably here ; but a difference com- 
mencing between him and his landlord, as to 
terms, after three years tossiug and whirling 
in the vortex of litigation, my fitlier was just 
saved from the horrors of a jail i^y a consump- 
tion, which, after two years' promises, kindly 
stepped in, and carried him away, to where the 
wicked cease from troubling, and where the 
weary are at rest. 

It is during the time that we lived on this 
farm that my little story is most eventful. I 
was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps 
the most ungainly, awkward boy in the parish 
— no solitaire was less acquainted with the 
ways of the world. What I knew of ancient 
story was gathered from Salmon s and Guth- 
rie's geographical grammars ; and the ideas I 
had formed of modern niauners, of literature, 
and criticism, I got from the Spectator. These, 
with Pope's Worksy some plays of Shahspeare, 
Tull and Dickson on Agriculture, the Pan- 
theon, Locke's Essay on the Human Un- 
derstanding, Stackhouse's History of the 
Bible, Justice's British Gardener's Directory, 
Bayle's Lectures, Allan Bamsay's Works, 
Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, 
A Select Collection of English Songs, and 
Hervey's Meditations, had formed the whole 
of my reading. The collection of songs was my 
vade mecum. I pored over them, driving my 
cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse 
by verse ; carefully noting the true tender, or 
sublime, from affectation and fustian. I am 
convinced I owe to this practice much of my cri- 
tic craft, such as it is. 

In my seventeenth yeai", to give my manners 
a brush, I went to a country dancing-school. — 
My father had an unaccountable antipathy 
against these meetings ; and my going was, 
what to this moment I repent, in opposition to 
his wishes. My father, as I said before, was 
subject to strong pai'sions ; from that instance 
of disobedience in me, he took a sort of dislike 
to me, which I believe was one cause of the dis- 
sipation which marked my succeeding years. I 



284! 



BURNS' WORKS. 



eay dissipation, comparatively with the strict- 
ness, and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyte- 
rian country life ; for though the Will-o'-Wisp 
meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the 
sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety 
and virtue kept me for several years afterwards 
within the line of innocence. The great mis- 
fortune of my life was to want an aim. I had 
felt early some stirrings of ambition, but they 
were the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops 
round the walls of his cave. I saw my father's 
situation entailed on me perpetual labour. The 
only two openings by which I could enter the 
temple of Fortune, was the gate of niggardly 
economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain- 
making. The first is so contracted an aperture, 
I never could squeeze myself into it ; — the last 
I always hated — there was contamination in the 
very entrance ! Thus abandoned of aim or view 
in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as 
well from native hilarity, as from a pride of ob- 
servation and remark ; a constitutional melan- 
choly or hypochondriasm that made me fly so- 
litude ; add to these incentives to social life, my 
reputation for bookish knowledge, a ceitain 
wild logical talent, and a strength of thought, 
something like the rudiiritents of good sense ; 
and it will not seem surprising that I was ge- 
nerally a welcome guest where I visited, or any 
great wonder that, always where two or three 
met together, there was I among them. But, 
far beyond all other impulses of my heart, was 
un penchant a Vadorahle moit6e du genre hu- 
main. My heart was completely tinder, and 
was eternally lighted up by some goddess or 
other ; and as in every other warfare in this 
world my fortune was various, sometimes I was 
received with favour, and sometimes T was mor- 
tified with a repulse. At the plough, scythe, 
or reap-hook, I feared no competitor, and thus 
I set absolute want at defiance ; and as I never 
cared farther for my labours than while I was 
in actual exercise, I spent the evenings in the 
way after ray own heart. A country lad sel- 
dom carries on a love adventure without an as- 
sisting confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal, 
and intrepid dexterity, that recommended me as 
a proper second on these occasions ; and I dare 
say, I felt as much pleasure in being in the se- 
cret of half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton, 
as ever did statesmen in knowing the intrigues 
of half the courts of Europe. — The very goose- 
feather in my hand seems to know instinctively 
the well-worn path of my imagination, the fa- 
vourite theme of my song ; and is with difficul- 
ty restrained from giving you a couple of para- 
graphs on the love adventures of my compeers, 
the humble inmates of the farm-house and cot- 
tage ; but the grave sons of science, ambition, 
or avarice, baptize these things by the name of 
follies. To the sons and daughters of labour 
and poverty, they are matters of the most seri- 
ous nature ; to them^ the ardent hope, the sto- 
len interview, the tender farewell, are the great- 
est and most delicious parts of their enjoyments. 



Another circumstance in my life which > 
made some alteration in my mind and manners, 
was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a 
smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at 
a noted school, to learn mensuration, surveying, 
dialling, &c. in which I made a pretty good 
progress. But I made a greater progress in the 
knowledge of mankind. The contraband trade 
was at that time very successful, and it some- 
times happened to me to fall in with those who 
carried it on. Scenes of swaggering riot and 
roaring dissipation were till this time new to 
me ; but I was no enemy to social life. Here, 
though I learnt to fill my glass, and to mix 
without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went 
on with a high hand with my geometry, till the 
sun entered Virgo, a month which is always a 
carnival in my bosom, when a charming ^/erte, 
who lived next door to the school, overset ray 
trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from 
the sphere of my studies. I, however, struggled 
on with my sines, and co-sines, for a few days 
more ; but stepping into the garden one charm- 
ing noon to take the sun's altitude, there I met 
my angel, 

" Like Proserpine, gathering flowers, 
Herself a fairer flower." 

It was in vain to think of doing any more 
good at school. The remaining week I staid, 
I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul 
about her, or steal out to meet her ; and the 
two last nights of my stay in the country, had 
sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this mo- 
dest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless. 

I returned home very considerably improv- 
ed. My reading was enlarged with the very 
important addition of Thomson's and Shen- 
stone's Works ; I had seen human nature in a 
new phasis ; and I engaged several of my 
school-fellows to keep up a literary correspon- 
dence with me. This improved me in compo- 
sition. I had met with a collection of letters 
by the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored 
over them most devoutly : I kept copies of any 
of my own letters that pleased me ; and a com- 
parison between them and the composition of 
most of my correspondents flattered my vanity, 
I carried this whim so far, that though I had 
not three farthings worth of business in the 
world, yet almost every post brought me as 
many letters as if I had been a broad plodding 
son of day-book and ledger. 

My life flowed on much in the same course 
till my twenty-third year. Vive I'amour, et 
Vive la bagatelle, were my sole principles of ac- 
tion. The addition of two more authors to my 
library gave me great pleasure ; Sterne and 
M'-Kenzie — Tristram Sliandy and The Man 
of Feeling — were my bosom favourites. Poesy 
was still a darling walk for my mind ; but it 
was only indulged in according to the humour 
of the hour. I had usually half a dozen or mor<f 
pieces on hand ; I took up one or other, as i% 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



285 



suited the momentary tone of the mind, and 
dismissed the work as it bordered on fatigue. 
My passions, when once lighted up, raged like 
so many devils, till they got vent in rhyme ; and 
then the conning over my verses, like a spell, 
soothed all into quiet ! None of the rhymes of 
those days are in print, except Winter, a Dirge, 
the eldest of my printed pieces ; Tfie Death of 
Poor Mailie, John Barleycorn, and Songs, 
first, second, and third. Song second was the 
ebullition of that passion which ended the fore- 
mentioned school business. 

My twenty-third year was to me an import- 
ant era. Partly through whim, and partly 
that I wished to set about doing something in 
life, I joined a flax-dresser in a neighbouring 
town (Irvine) to learn his trade. This was 

an unlucky affair. My ; and, to 

finish the whole, as we were giving a welcome 
carousal to the new year, the shop took fire, 
and burnt to ashes ; and I was left, like a true 
poet, not worth a sixpence. 

1 wa?t obliged to give up this scheme : the 
clouds of misfortune v/ere gathering thick round 
my father's head ; and, what was worst of all, 
he was visibly far gone in a consumption 5 and, 
to crown my distresses, a helle Jille, whom I 
adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet 
me in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with 
peculiar circumstances of mortification. The 
finishing evil that brought up the rear of this 
infernal file, was, my constitutional melancholy 
being increased to such a degree, that for three 
months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be 
envied by the hopeless wretches who have got 
their mittimus — Depart from me, ye cursed ! 

From this adventure, I learned something 
of a town life ; but the principal thing which 
gave my mind a turn, was a friendship I form- 
ed with a young fellow, a very noble character, 
but a hapless son of misfortune. He was the 
6oa of a simple mechanic ; but a great man in 
the neighbourhood taking him under his pa- 
tronage, gave him a genteel education, with a 
view of bettering his situation in life. The 
patron dying just as he was ready to launch out 
into the world, the poor fellow in despair went 
to sea ; where, after a variety of good and ill 
fortune, a little before I was acquainted with 
him, he had been set ashore by an American 
privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught, 
stripped of every thing. I cannot quit this poor 
fellow's story, without adding, that he is at this 
time master of a large West Indiaraan belonging 
to the Thames. 

His mind was fraught with independence, 
magnanimity, and every manly virtue. I loved 
and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, 
and of course strove to imitate him. In some 
measure, I succeeded ; I had pride before, but 
he taught it to flow in proper channels. His 
knowledge of the world was vastly superior to 
mine, and I was all attention to learn. He was 
the only man I ever saw Avho was a greater 
fool than myself, where woman was the presid- 



ing star ; but he spoke of illicit love with the 
levity of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded 
with horror. Here his friendship did me a mis- 
chief; and the consequence was, that soon after 
I resumed the plough, I wrote the Poet's Wel- 
come.* My reading only increasetl, while in 
this town, by two stray volumes of Pamela, and 
one of Ferdinand Count Fathom, which gave 
me some idea of novels. Rhyme, except some 
religious pieces that are in print, I had given 
up ; but meeting with Fergusson' s Scottish 
Poems, I strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre 
with emulating vigour. When my father died, 
his all went among the hell-hounds that prowl 
in the kennel of justice ; but we made a shift 
to collect a little money in the family amongst 
us, with which, to keep us together, my brother 
and I took a neighbouring farm. My brother 
wanted my hair-brained imagination, as well as 
my social and amorous madness ; but, in good 
sense, and every sober qualification, he was far 
my superior. 

I entered on this farm with a full resolution, 
Come, go to, I tvill be wise ! I read farming 
books ; I calculated crops ; I attendfid markets ; 
and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the 
world, and the flesh, I believe I should have 
been a wise man ; but the first year, from un- 
fortunately buying bad seed, the second, from a 
late harvest, we lost half our crops. This over- 
set all my wisdom, and I returned, like the dog 
to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to 
her wallowing in the mire. 

I now began to be known in the neigh- 
bourhood as a maker of rhymes. The first of 
my poetic offspring that saw the light, was a 
burlesque lamentation on a quarrel between two 
reverend Calvinists, both of them dramatis per- 
soncB in my Holy Fair. I had a notion my- 
self, that the piece had some merit ; but to pre- 
vent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend 
who was very fond of such things, and told him 
that I could not guess who was the author of 
it, but that I thought it pretty clever. With 
a certain description of the clergy, as well as 
laity, it met with a roar of applause. Holy 
Willie's Prayer uext made its appearance, and 
alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they 
held several meetings to look over their spiritual 
artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed 
against profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, 
my wanderings led me on another side, within 
point blank shot of their heaviest metal. This 
is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my 
printed poem, The Lament. Tiiis was a most 
melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to 
I'eflect on, and had very nearly given me one or 
two of the principal qualifications for a place 
among those who have lost the chart, atid mis- 
taken the reckoning of Rationality. I gave up 
my part of the farm to my brother ; iu truth it 
was only nominally mine j and made what little 



* Rob the Rhvmer's Welcome to his Bastard 
Child. 



286 



BURNS' WORKS. O 



preparation was in my power for Jamaica. But, 
before leaving my native country for ever, I re- 
solved to publish my poems. I weighed my 
productions as impartially as was in my power : 
I thought they had merit ; and it was a deli- 
cious idea that I should be called a clever fel- 
low, even though it should never reach my 
ears — a poor negro-driver, — or perhaps a vic- 
tim to that inhospitable clime, and gone to the 
world of spirits ! I can truly say, that pauvre 
inconnu as I then was, I had pretty nearly as 
high an idea of myself and of my works as I 
have at this moment, when the public has de- 
cided in their favour. It ever was my opini- 
on, that the mistakes and blunders, both in a 
rational and religious point of view, of which 
we see thousands daily guilty, are owing to 
their igoorance of themselves. — To know my- 
self, had been all along my constant study. I 
weighed myself alone ; I balanced myself with 
others ; I watched every means of information, 
to see how much ground I occupied as a man 
and as a poet : I studied assiduously nature's 
design in my formation — where the lights and 
shades in my character were intended. I was 
pretty confident my poems would meet with 
Bome applause ; but, at the worst, the roar of 
the Atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, 
and the novelty of West Indian scenes make me 
forget neglect. I threw off six hundred copies, 
of which I had got subscriptions for about three 
hundred and fifty. — My vanity was highly gra- 
tified by the reception I met with from the 
public ; and besides I pocketed, all expenses 
deducted, nearly twenty pounds. This sum 
came very seasonably, as I was thinking of in- 
denting myself, for want of money to procure 
my passage. As soon as I was master of nine 
guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid 
zone, I took a steerage passage in the first ship 
that was to sail from the Clyde j for 

" Hungry ruin had me in the wind." 

I had been for some days skulking from 
covert to covert, under all the terrors of a jail ; 
as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the 
merci'ess pack of the law at my heels. I had 
taken the last farewell of my few friends ; my 
chest was on the road to Greenock ; I had com- 
posed the last song I should ever measure in 
Caledonia, The gloo7ny night is gathering fast, 
when a letter from Dr. Blacklock, to a friend 
of mine, overthrew all my schemes, by opening 
new prospects to my poetic ambition. The 
Doctor belonged to a set of critics, for whose 
applause I had not dared to hope. His opi- 
nion that I would meet with encouragement in 
Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so 
much, that away I posted for that city, with- 
out a single acquaintance, or a single letter of 
introduction. The baueful star, that had so 
long shed its blasting iufluence in my zenith, 
for once made a revolution to the nadir ; and 
a kind Providence placed me under the patron- 



age of one of the noblest of men, the Earl of 
Glencairn. Oiiblie rnoi, Grand Dieu, si ja- 
maisje I'oublie ! 

I need relate no farther. At Edinburgh I 
was in a new world ; I mingled among many 
classes of men, but all of them new to me, and 
I was all attention to catch the characters and 
the m-anners living as they rise. Whether 1 
have profited, time will show. 



My most respectful compliments to Miss W. 
Her very elegant and friendly letter I cannot an- 
swer at present, as my presence is requisite in 
Edinburgh, and I set out to-morrow.* 



No. LXVI. 
FROM GILBERT BURNS. 

A RUNNING COMMENTARY ON THE FORE- 
GOING. 

The farm was upwards of seventy acres f 
(between eighty and ninety English statute 
measure), the rent of vvhich was to be forty 
pounds annually for the first six years, and af-^ 
terwards forty-five pounds. My father endea- 
voured to sell his leasehold property, for the 
purpose of stocking this farm, but at that timie 
was unable, and Mr. Ferguson lent him a hun- 
dred pounds for that purpose. He removed to 
his new situation at Whitsuntide, 1766. It was, 
I think, not above two years after this, that 
Murdoch, our tutor and friend, left this part of 
the country ; and there being no school near us, 
and our little services being useful on the farm, 
my father undertook to teach us arithmetic in 
the winter evenings, by candle-light; and in this 
way my two eldest sisters got all the education 
they received. I remember a circumstance that 
happened at this time, which, though trifling 
in itself, is fresh in my memory, and may serve 
to illustrate the early character of my brother. 
Murdoch came to spend a night with us, and to 
take his leave when he was about to go into 
Carrick. He brought us, as a present and me- 
morial of him, a small compendium of English 
Grammar, and the tragedy of Titus Androni- 
cus ; and by way of passing the evening, he be- 
gan to read the play aloud. We were all atten- 
tion for some time, till presently the whole par- 
ty was dissolved in tears. A female in the play 
(I have but a confused remembrance of it) had 



* There are various copies of this letter, in the au- 
thor's handwriting; and one of these, evidently cor- 
rected, is in the book in which he had copied several 
of his letters. This has been used for the press, with 
some omissions, and one slight alteration suggested by 
Gilbert Burns. 

t Letter of Gilbert Burns to Mrs. Dunlop. The 
name of this farm is Mount Oliphant, in Ayr parish. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



387 



her hands chopt orf, aud her tongue cut out, 
and then was insultingly desired to call for wa- 
ter to wash her hands. At this, in an agony of 
distress, we with one voice desired he would 
read no more. My father observed, tliat if we 
would not hear it out, it would he needless to 
leave the play with us. Robert replied, that if 
it was left he would burn it. My father was 
goiug to chide him for this ungrateful return to 
his tutor's kindness ; but Murdoch interfered, de- 
claring that he liked to see so much sensibility ; 
and he left Tlie School for Love, a comedy 
(translated, I think, from the French), in its 
place. 

Nothing could be more retired than our ge- 
neral manner of living at Mount Oliphant ; 
we rarely saw any body but the members of 
our own family. There were no boys of our 
own age, or near it, in the neighbourhood. 
Indeed the greatest part of the land in the 
vicinity was at that time possessed by shop- 
keepers, and people of that stamp, who had 
retired from business, or who kept their farm 
in the country, at the same time that tliey fol- 
lowed business in town. My father was for 
some time almost the only companion we had. 
He conversed familiarly on all subjects with us, 
as if we had been men ; and was at great pains, 
while we accompanied him in the labours of the 
farm, to lead the conversation to such subjects 
as might tend to increase our knowledge, or 
confirm us in virtuous habits. He borrowed 
Salmon s Geographical Grammar for us, and 
endeavoured to make us acquainted with the 
situation and history of the different countries 
in the world ; while, from a book-society in 
Ayr, he procured for us the reading of Der- 
ham's Physico and Astro - Theology, and 
Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation, to 
give us some idea of astronomy and natural h 
tory. Robert read all these books with an avi- 
dity and industry scarcely to be equalled. My 
father had been a subscriber to Stackhouse's 
History of the Bible, then lately published by 
James Meuros in Kilmarnock : from this 
Robert collected a competent knowledge of an- 
cient history ; for no book was so voluminous 
as to slacken his industry, or so antiquitated as 
to damp his researches. A brother of ray mo- 
ther, who had lived with us some time, and 
had learnt some arithmetic by our winter even- 
ing's candle, went into a bookseller's shop in 
Ayr, to purchase The Ready Reckoner, or 
Tradesman's sure Guide, and a book to teach 
him to write letters. Luckily, in place of The 
Complete Letter- Writer, he got, by mistake, 
a small collection of letters by the most emi- 
nent writers, with a few sensible directions for 
attaining an easy epistolary style. This book 
was to Robert of the greatest consequence. It 
inspired him with a strong desire to excel in 
letter-writing, while it furnished him with mo- 
dels by some of the first writers in our lan- 
guage. 

My brother was about thirteen or fourteen, 



when my father, regretting that we wrote so 
ill, sent us week about, during a summer quar- 
ter, to the parish school of Dalrymple, which, 
though between two and three miles distant, 
was the nearest to us, that we might have an 
opportunity of remedying this defect. About 
this time a bookish acquaintance of my father's 
procured us a reading of two volumes of Rich- 
ardson's Pamela, which wa's the first novel we 
read, and the only part of Richardson's works 
my brother was acquainted with till towards 
the period of his commencing author. Till that 
time too he remained unacquainted with Field- 
ing, with Smollet, (two volumes of Ferdinand 
Count Fathom, and two volumes of Peregrine 
Pickle excepted), with Hume, with Robertson, 
and almost all our authors of eminence of the 
later times. I recollect indeed my father bor- 
rowed a volume of English history from Mr. 
Hamilton of Bourtree-hill's gardener. It treat- 
ed of the reign of James the First, and his un- 
fortunate son Charles, but I do not know who 
was the author ; all that I remember of it is 
something of Charles's conversation with his 
children. About this time Murdoch, our for- 
mer teacher, after having been in different 
places in the country, and having taught a 
school some time in Dumfries, came to be the 
established teacher of the English language ia 
Ayr, a circumstance of considerable consequence 
to us. The remembrance of my father's former 
friendship, and his attachment to my brother, 
made him do every thing in his power for our 
improvement. He sent us Pope's works, and 
some other poetry, the first that we had an op- 
portunity of reading, excepting what is con- 
tained in The English Collection, and in the 
volume of The Edinburgh Magazine for 1772 ; 
excepting also those excellent new songs that 
are hawked about the country in baskets, or 
exposed on stalls in the streets. 

The summer after we had been at Dalrym- 
ple school, my father sent Robert to Ayr, to 
revise his English grammar, with his former 
teacher. He had been there only one week, 
when he was obliged to return, to assist at the 
harvest. When the harvest was over, he went 
back to school, where he remained two weeks ; 
and this completes the account of his school 
education, excepting one summer quarter, some 
time afterwards, that he attended the parish 
school of Kirk-Oswald (where he lived with a 
brother of my mother's) to learn surveying. 

During the two last weeks that he was with 
Murdoch, he himself was engaged in learning 
French, and he communicated the instructions 
he received to my brother, who, when he return- 
ed, brought home with him a French dictionary 
and grammar, and the Adventures of Telema- 
chus in the original. In a little while, by the 
assistance of these books, he had acquired such a 
knowledge of the language, as to read and un- 
derstand any French author in prose. This 
was considered as a sort of prodigy, and, through 
the medium of Murdoch, procured him the ac- 



288 



BURNS' WORKS. 



quaintance of several lads in Ayr, who were at 
that time gabbling French, and the notice of 
some families, particularly that of Dr. Malcolm, 
where a knowledge of French was a recommen- 
dation. 

Observing the facility with which he had 
acquired tlie French language, Mr. Robinson, 
the established writing-master in Ayr, and Mr. 
Murdoch's particular friend, having himself ac- 
quired a considerable knowledge of the Latin 
language by his own industry, without ever ha- 
ving learned it at school, advised Robert to make 
the same attempt, promising him every assist- 
ance in his power. Agreeably to this advice, he 
purchased The Rudiments of the Latin Tongue, 
but finding this study dry and uninteresting, it 
was quickly laid aside. He frequently returned 
to his Rudiments on any little chagrin or dis- 
appointment, particularly in his love affairs ; 
but the Latin seldom predominated more than a 
day or two at a time, or a week at most. Ob- 
serving himself the ridicule that would attach to 
this sort of conduct if it were known, he made 
two or three humorous stanzas on the subject, 
which I cannot now recollect, but they all ended, 

" So I'll to my Latin again.' 

Thus you see IMr. Murdoch was a principal 
means of my brother's improvement. Worthy 
man ! though foreign to my present purpose, I 
cannot take leave of him without tracing his 
future history. He continued for some years a 
respected and useful teacher at Ayr, till one 
evening that he bad been overtaken in liquor, 
he happened to speak somewhat disrespectfully 
of Dr. Dahymple, the parish minister, who had 
not paid him that attention to which he thqught 
himself entitled. In Ayr he might as well have 
spoken blasphemy. He found it proper to give 
up his appointment. He went to London, where 
h£ still lives, a private teacher of French. He 
has been a considerable time married, and. keeps 
a shop of stationery wares. 

The father of Dr. Paterson, now physician at 
Ayr, was, I believe, a native of Aberdeenshire, 
and was one of the established teachers in Ayr 
when my father settled in the neighbourhood. 
He early recognised my father as a fellow na- 
tive of the north of Scotland, and a certain de- 
gree of intimacy subsisted between them during 
Mr. Paterson's life. After his death, his widow, 
who is a very genteel woman, and of great 
worth, delighted in doing what she thought her 
husband would have wished to have done, and 
assiduously kept up her attentions to all his ac- 
quaintance. She kept alive the intimacy with 
our family, by frequently inviting my father and 
mother to her house on Sundajs, %rhen she met 
them at church. 

When she came to know my brother's passion 
for books, she kindly offered us the ii«;e of her 
husband's library, and from her ^ve got the 
Spectator, Pope's Translation of Honur, and 
fieveral other books that were of use to us. 



Mount Oliphaut, the farm my father possessed 
in the parish of Ayr, is almost the very poorest 
soil I know of in a state of cultivation. A 
stronger proof of this I cannot give, than that, 
notwithstanding the extraordinary rise in the 
value of lands in Scotland, it was, after a con- 
siderable sum laid out in improving it by the 
proprietor, let, a few years ago, five pounds per 
annum lower than the rent paid for it by my 
father thirty years ago. My father, in conse- 
quence cf this, soon came into difficulties, which 
were increased by the loss of several of his cattle 
by accidents and disease. — To the buffetings of 
misfortune we could only oppose hard labour and 
the most rigid economy. We lived very spa- 
ringly. For several years butcher's meat was a 
stranger in the house, while all the members of 
the family exerted themselves to the utmost of 
their strength, and rather beyond it, in the la- 
bours of the farm. My brother, at the age of 
thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of corn, 
and at fifteen was the principal labourer on the 
farm, for we had no hired servant, male or fe- 
male. The anguish of mind we felt at our ten- 
der years, under these straits and difficulties, 
was very great. To think of our father grow- 
ing old, (for he was now above fifty), brokea 
down with the long continued fatigues of hi* 
life, with a wife and five other children, and ia 
a declining state of circumstances, these reflec- 
tions produced in my brother's mind and mine 
sensations of the deepest distress. I doubt not 
but the hard labour and sorrow of this pe- 
riod of his life, was in a gi-eat measure the cause 
of that depression of spirits with which Robert 
was so often afflicted through his whole life af- 
terwards. At this time he was almost con- 
stantly afflicted in the evenings with a dull 
headache, which, at a future period of his life, 
was exchanged for a palpitation of the heart, 
ind a threatening of fainting and suffocation in 
his bed, in the night-time. 

By a stipulation in my father's lease, he had 
a right to throw it up, if he thought proper, at 
the end of every sixth year. He attempted to 
fix himself in a better farm at the end of the 
arst six years, but failing in that attempt, he 
continued where he was for six years more. He 
:hen took the farm of Lochlea, of 130 acres, at 
:he rent of twenty shiUings an acre, in the pa- 
rish of Tarbolton,' of IMr. , then 

a merchant in Ayr, and now (1797) a merchant 
in Liverpool. He removed to this farm at 
' Whitsunday, 1777, and possessed it only seven 
I years. No writing had ever been made out of 
the conditions of the lease ; a misunderstanding 
took place respecting them ; the subjects in dis- 
pute were submitted to arbitration, and the de- 
cision involved my father's affairs in ruin. He 
lived to know of this decision, but not to see any 
execution in consequence of it. He died on the 
I3th of February, 1784.. 

The seven years we lived in Tarbolton parish 
(extending from the seventeenth to the twenty- 
fourth of my brother's age), were not marked 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



289 



bv much literary improvement ; but during 
tnis time the foundation was laid of certain ha- 
bits in my brother's character, which afterwards 
became but too prominent, and which malice 
and envy have taken delight to enlarge on. 
Though, when young, he was bashful and awk- 
ward in his intercourse with women, yet when 
he approached manhood, his attachment to their 
society became very strong, and he was con- 
stantly the victim of some fair enslaver. The 
symptoms of his passion were often such as 
nearly to equal those of the celebrated Sappho. 
I never indeed knew that he fainted, sunk, and 
died away ; but the agitations of his mind and 
body exceeded any thing of the kind I ever 
knew in real life. He had always a particular 
jealousy of people who were richer than him- 
self, or who had more consequence in life. His 
love, therefore, rarely settled on persons of this 
description. When he selected any one, out of 
the sovereignty of his good pleasure, to whom 
he should pay his particular attention, she was 
instantly invested with a sufficient stock of 
charms, out of the plentiful stores of his own 
imagination ; and there was often a great dis- 
similitude between his fair captivator, as she 
appeared to others, and as she seemed when in- 
vested with the attributes he gave her. One 
generally reigned paramount in his affections ; 
but as Yorick's affections flowed out, toward 

Madame de L ■ at the remise door, while 

the eternal vows of Eliza were upon Kim, so 
Robert was frequently encountering other at- 
tractions, which formed so many under plots in 
the drama of his love. As these connections 
were governed by the strictest rules of virtue 
and modesty (from which he never deviated till 
he reached his 23d year), he became anxious to 
be in a situation to marry. This was not likely 
to be soon the case while he remained a farmer, 
as the stocking of a farm required a sum of 
money he had no probability of being master of 
for a great while. He began, therefore, to think 
of trying some other line of life. He and I had 
for several years taken land of my father for the 
purpose of raising flax on our own account. In 
the course of selling it, Robert began to think 
of turning flax-dresser, both as being suitable to 
his grand view of settling in life, and as sub- 
servient to the flax raising. He accordingly 
Avrought at the business of a flax-dresser in 
Irvine for six months, but abandoned it at that 
period, as neither agreeing with his health nor 
inclination. In Irvine he had contracted some 
acquaintance of a freer manner of thinking and I 
living than he had been used to, whose society 
prepared him for overleaping the bounds of rigid 
virtue which had hitherto restrained him. To- 
wards the end of the period under review (in 
his 24th year), and soon after his father's death, 
he was furnished with the subject of his epistle 
to John Rankin. During this period also he 
became a freemason, which was his first intro- 
duction to the life of a boon companion. Yet, 
notwithstanding these circumstances, and the 



praise he has bestowed on Scotch drink (which 
seems to have misled his historians), 1 do not 
recollect, during these seven years, nor till to- 
wards the end of his commencing author (when 
his growing celebrity occasioned his being often 
in company), to have ever seen him intoxicated; 
nor was he at all given to drinking, A stronger 
proof of the general sobriety of his conduct need 
not be required than what I am about to give. 
During the whole of the time we lived in the 
farm of Lochlea with my father, he allowed my 
brother and me such wages for our labour as he 
gave to other labourers, as a part of which, 
every article of our clothing manufactured in 
the family was regularly accounted for. When 
my father's affairs drew near a crisis, Robert 
and I took the farm of Mossgiel, consisting of 
118 acres, at the rent of ^£90 per annum (the 
farm on which I live at present) from Mr. Ga- 
vin Hamilton, as an asylum for the family in 
case of the worst. It was stocked by the pro- 
perty and individual savings of the whole family, 
and was a joint concern among us. Every mem- 
ber of the funnily was allowed ordinary wages 
for the labour he performed on the farm. My 
brother's allowance and mine was seven pounds 
per annum each. And during the whole time 
this family concern lasted, which was four years, 
as well as during the preceding period at Loch- 
lea, his expenses never in one year exceeded his 
slender income. As I was intrusted with the 
keeping of the family accounts, it is not possi- 
ble that there can be any fallacy in this state- 
ment in my brother's favour. His temperance 
and frugality were every thing that could be 
wished. 

The farm of Mossgiel lies very high, and 
mostly on a cold wet bottom. The first four 
years that jve were on the farm were very frosty, 
and the spring was very late. Our crops iu 
consequence were very unprofitable j and, not- 
withstanding our utmost diligence and economy, 
we found ourselves obliged to give up our bar- 
gain, with the loss of a considerable part of our 
original stock. It was during these four years 
that Robert formed his connection with Jean 
Armour, afterwards Mrs. Burns. This connec- 
tion could no longer he concealed, about the 
time we came to a final determination to quit 
the farm. Robert durst not engage with a 
family in his poor unsettled state, but was an- 
xious to shield his partner by every means in 
his power from the consequences of their im- 
prudence. It was agreed therefore between 
them, that they should make a legal acknow- 
ledgment of an irregular and private marriage ; 
that he should go to Jamaica, to push his for- 
tune ; and that she should remain with her 
father till it might please Providence to put the 
means of supporting a family iu his power. 

Mrs. Burns was a great favourite of her fa- 
ther's. The intimation of a private marriage 
was the first suggestion he received of her rea 
situation. He was in the greatest distress, and 
fainted away. The marriage did not appear to 
57 



290 



BURNS' WORKS. 



him to make the matter any better. A hus- 
band in Jamaica appeared to him and to his wile 
little better than none, and an effectual bar to 
any other prospects of a settlement in life that 
their daughter might have. They therefore ex- 
pressed a wish to her, that the written papers 
which respected the marriage should be cancel- 
led, and thus the marriage rendered void. In 
her melancholy state she felt the deepest remorse 
at having brought such heavy affliction on pa- 
rents that loved her so tenderly, and submitted 
to their entreaties. Their wish was mentioned 
to Robert. He felt the deepest anguish of 
mind. He offered to stay at home and provide 
for his wife and family in the best manner that 
his daily labours could provide for them ; that 
being the only means in his power. Even this 
offer they did not approve of ; for, humble as 
Miss Armour's station was, and great though 
her imprudence had been, she still, in the eyes 
of her partial parents, might look to a better 
connexion than that with my friendless and un- 
happy brother, at that time without house or 
hiding-place. Robert at length consented to 
their wishes ; but his feelings on this occasion 
were of the most distracting nature ; and the 
impression of sorrow was not effaced, till by a 
regular marriage they were indissolubly united. 
In the state of mind which this separation pro- 
duced, he wished to leave the country as soon 
as possible, and agreed with Dr. Douglas to go 
out to Jamaica as an assistant overseer, or, as I 
believe it is called, a book-keeper, on his estate. 
As he had not sufficient money to pay his pas- 
sage, and the vessel in which Dr. Douglas was 
to procure a passage for him was not expected 
to sail for some time, Mr. Hamilton advised him 
to pubUsh liis poems in the meantime by sub- 
scription, as a likely way of getting a little mo- 
ney to provide him more liberally in necessaries 
for Jamaica. Agreeably to this advice, sub- 
scription bills were printed immediately, and 
the printing was commenced at Kilmarnock, 
his preparations going on at the same time for 
his voyage. The reception, however, which 
his poems met with in the world, and the friends 
they p'rocured him, made him change his reso- 
lution of going to Jamaica, and he was advised 
to go to Edinburgh to publish a second edition. 
On his return, in happier circumstances, he re- 
newed his connexion with Mrs. Burns, and I'en- 
dered it permanent by a union for life. 

Thus, Madam, have I endeavoured to give 
you a simple narrative of the leading circum- 
stances in my brother's early life. The remain- 
ing part he spent in Edinburgh or in Dumfries- 
shire, and its incidents are as well known to 
you as to me. His genius having procured him 
your patronage and friendship, this gave rise to 
the correspondence between you, in which, I 
believe, his sentiments were delivered with the 
most respectful, but most unreserved confidence, 
and which only terminated with the last days of 
liis life. 



No. LXVII. 



FROM MR. MURDOCH 

TO 

DR. MOORE, 

AS TO THE poet's EARLY TUITION. 



I WAS lately favoured with a letter from our 
worthy friend, the Rev. William Adair, in which 
he requested me to communicate to you what- 
ever particulars I could recollect concerning 
Robert Burns, the Ayrshire poet. My business 
being at present multifarious and harassing, my 
attention is consequently so much divided, and I 
am so little in the habit of expressing my thoughts 
on paper, that at this distance of time I can give 
but a very imperfect sketch of the early part of 
the life of that extraordinary genius with which 
alone I am acquainted. 

William Burnes, the father of the poet, was 
born in the shire of Kincardine, and bred a 
gardener. He had been settled in Ayrshire ten 
or twelve years before I knew him, and had 
been in the service of Mr. Crawford of Doon- 
side. He was afterwards employed as a gar- 
dener and overseer by Provost Ferguson of 
Doonholm, in the parish of Alloway, which is 
now united with that of Ayr. In this parish, 
on the inad side, a Scotch mile and a half from 
the town of Ayr, and half a mile from the 
bridge of Doon, William Burnes took a piece 
of land, consisting of about seven acres, part of 
which he laid out in garden ground, and pait 
of which he kept to graze a cow, &c. still con- 
tinuing in the employ of Provost Ferguson. 
Upon this little farm was erected a humble 
dwelling, of which William Burnes was the ar- 
chitect. It was, with the exception of a little 
straw, literally a tabernacle of clay. In this 
mean cottage, of which I myself was at times 
an inhabitant, I really believe there dwelt a 
larger portion of content than in any palace in 
Europe. The Cotter s Saturday Night, will 
give some idea of the temper and manners that 
prevailed there. 

In ] 765, about the middle of INIarch, Mr. 
W. Burnes came to Ayr, and sent to the school 
where I was improving in writing under my 
good friend Mr. Robinson, desiring that I would 
come and speak to him at a certain inn, and 
bring my writing book with me. This was 
immediately complied with. Having examined 
my writing, he was pleased with it — (you will 
readily allow he was not difficult), and told me 
that he had received very satisfactory informa- 
tion of INIr. Tennant, the master of the Eng- 
lish school, concerning my improvement in 
English, and in his method of teaching. In 
the month of May following, I was engaged by 
Mr. Burnes, and four of his neighbours, to teach, 
and accordingly began to teach the little school 
at Alloway, which was situated a fevj yarda 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



291 



from tbe are^illaceous fabric above jnentioned. 
JMy live employers undertook to board me by 
turns, and to make up a certain salary, at the 
end of the year, provided ray quarterly pay- 
ments from the different pupils did not amount 
to that sum. 

My pupil, Robert Burns, was then between 
six and seven years of ajje ; his preceptor about 
eighteen. Robert and his younger brother Gil- 
bert, had been grounded a little in English be- 
fore they were put under my care. They both 
made a rapid progress in reading, and a tolerable 
progress in writing. In reading, dividing words 
into syllables by rule, spelling without book, 
parsing sentences, &c., Robert and Gilbert were 
generally at the upper end of the class, even 
when ranged M'ith boys by far their seniors. 
The books most commonly used in the school 
were, the Spelling Book, the Neio Testament, 
the Sible, Mason's Collection of Prose and 
Verse, and Fisher s English Grammar. They 
conamitted to memory tlie hymns, and other 
poems of that collection, with uncommon fiicili- 
ty. This facility was partly owing to the me- 
thod pursued by their father and me in instruct- 
ing them, which was, to make them thoroughly 
acquainted with the meaning of every word in 
each sentence that was to be committed to me- 
mory. By the bye, this may be easier done, and 
at an earlier period, than is generally thought. 
As soon as they were capable of it, I taught them 
to turn verse into its natural prose order ; some- 
times to substitute synonymous expressions for 
poetical words, and to supply all the ellipses. 
These, you know, are the means of knowing that 
the pupil understands his author. These are 
excellent helps to the arrangement of words in 
sentences, as well as to a variety of expression. 

Gilbert always appeared to me to possess a 
more lively imagination, and to be more of the 
wit, than Robert. I attempted to teach them a 
little church music. Here they were left far be- 
liind by all the rest of the school. Robert's ear, 
in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice 

iuntuuable. It was long before I could get them 
to distinguish one tune from another. Robert's 
;^, countenance was generally grave, and expressive 
of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind. 
Gilbert's face said, Mirth, with thee I mean to 
live ; and certainly, if any person who knew the 
two boys, had been asked which of them was 
the most likely to court the muses, he would 

» surely never have guessed that Robert had a 
propensity of that kind. 

In the year 1767, Mr. Burnes quitted his 
mud edifice, and took possession of a farm 
(Mount Oliphant) of his own improving, while 
in the service of Provost Ferguson. This farm 
being at a considerable distance from the school, 
the boys could not attend regularly ; and some 
changes taking place among the other sup- 
porters of the school, I left it, having continued 
to conduct it for nearly two years and a half. 

In the year 1772, I was appointed (being one 
of five caudiilates who were examined) to teach 



the iMiglish school at Ayi- ; and in 1773, Robert 
Burns came to board and lodge with me, for the 
purpose of revising English grammar, &c. that 
be might be better qiialilied to instruct his bro- 
thers and sisters at home. He was now with 
me day and niglit, in school, at meals, and in all 
my walks. At the end of one week, I told him, 
that, as he was now pretty much master of the 
parts of speech, &c., I should like to teach him 
something of French pronunciation, that whea 
he should meet with the name of a French town, 
ship, officer, or the like, in the newspapers, he 
might be able to pronounce it something like a 
French word. Robert was glad to hear this pro- 
posal, and immediately we attacked the French 
with great courage. 

Now there was little else to be heard but the 
declension of nouns, the conjugation of verbs, 
&c. When walking together, and even at meals, 
I was constantly telling him the names of differ- 
ent objects, as they presented themselves, ia 
French ; so that he was hourly laying in a stock 
of words, and sometimes little phrases. In short, 
he took such pleasure in learning, and I in teach- 
ing, that it was difficult to say which of the two 
was most zealous in the business ; and about the 
end of the second week of our study of the 
French, we began to read a little of the Adven- 
tures of Telcmachus, iuFenelon's own words. 

But now the plains of Mount Oliphant began 
to whiten, and Rol)ert was summoned to relin- 
quish the pleasing scenes that surrounded the 
grotto of Calypso, and, armed with a sickle, to 
seek glory by signalizing himself in the fields of 
Ceres — and so he did ; for although but about 
fifteen, I was told tliat he performed the work 
of a man. 

Thus was I deprived of my very apt pupil, 
and consequently agreeable companion, at the 
end of three weeks, one of which was spent en- 
tirely in the study of English, and the other two 
chiefly in that of French. I did not, however, 
lose sight of him ; but was a frequent visitant 
at his father's house, when 1 had my half- holi- 
day, and very often went accompanied with one 
or two jiersons more intelligent than myself, that 
good William Burnes might enjoy a mental feast. 
— Then the labouring oar was shifted to some 
other band. The fither and the son sat down 
with us, when we enjoyed a conversation, where- 
in solid reasoning, sensible remark, and a mo- 
derate seasoning of jocularity, were so nicely 
blended as to render it palatable to all parties. 
Robert had a hundred questions to ask me about 
the French, &c, ; and the father, who had al- 
ways rational information in view, had still 
some question to propose to my more learned 
friends, upon moral or natural philosophy, or 
some such interesting subject. Mrs. Buiiies 
too was of the party as much as possible ; 

" But still the house affairs would draw her thence, 
Which ever as she coiUd with haste dispatch, 
She'd come again, and, with a greedy ear, 
Devour up their discourse." 



292 



BURNS' WORKS, 



and particularly tliat of her husband. At all 
times, and in all companies, she listened to him 
A\ith a more marked attention than to any body else. 
When under the necessity of being absent while 
he was speaking-, she seemed to regret, as a real 
loss, that bhe had missed what the good man 
had said. This worthy woman, Agnes Brown, 
had the most thorough esteem for her husband 
of any woman I ever knew. I can by no means 
wonder that she highly esteemed him ; for I 
myself have always considered William Burnes 
as by far the best of the human race that ever 
had the pleasure of being acquainted with — 
and many a worthy character I have known. 
1 can cheerfully join with Robert in the last line 
of his epitaph (borrowed from Goldsmith), 

" And even his failings lean'd to virtue's side." 

He was an excellent husband, if I may judge 
from his assiduous attention to the ease and 
comfort of his worthy partner, and from her 
affectionate behaviour to him, as well as her 
unwearied attention to the duties of a mother. 

He was a tender and affectionate father ; he 
took pleasure in leading his children in the path 
of virtue ; not in driving them, as some parents 
do, to the performance of duties to which thcv 
themselves are averse. He took care to find 
fault but very seldom ; and therefore, when he 
did rebuke, he was listened to with a kind of 
reverential awe. A look of disapprol)atlon was 
felt ; a reproof was severely so ; and a stripe 
Avith the taws, even on the skirt of the coat, 
gave heart-felt pain, produced a loud lamenta- 
tion, and brought forth a flood of tears. 

He had the art of gaining the esteem and 
good-will of those that were labourers under 
him. I think I never saw him angry but 
twice . the one time it was with the foreman of 
the band, for not reaping the field as he was de- 
^ired ; and the other time, it was with an old 
man, for using smutty inuendoes and double en- 
tendres. Were every foul-mouthed old man to 
receive a seasonable check in this way, it would 
be to the advantage of the rising generation. 
As he was at no time overbearing to inferiors, 
he was equally incapable of that passive, pitiful, 
paltry spirit, that induces some people to keep 
booing and booing in the presence of a great 
man. He always treated superiors with a be- 
coming respect ; but he never gave the smallest 
encouragement to aristocratical arrogance. But 
I must not pretend to give you a description of 
all the manly qualities, the rational and Chris- 
tian virtues of the venerable William Burnes. 
Time would fail mc. I shall only add, that he 
carefully practised every known duty, and avoid- 
ed every thing that was criminal ; or, in the 
apostle's words. Herein did he exercise him- 
self, in living a life void of offence towards 
God and towards men. O for a world of men 
of such dispositions ! We should then have no 
wars. I have often wished, for the good of 
mankind, that it were as customary to honour 



and perpetuate the memory of those who excel 
in moral rectitude, as it is to extol what are 
called heroic actions : then would the mausole- 
um of the friend of my youth overtop and sur- 
pass most of the monuments I see in Westmin- 
ster Abbey. 

Although I cannot do justice to the charac- 
ter of this worthy man, yet you will perceive, 
from these few particulars, what kind of person 
had the principal hand in the education of our 
poet. He spoke the English language with 
more propriety (both with respect to diction 
and pronunciation), than any man I ever knew, 
with no greater advantages. This had a very 
good effect on the boys, who began to talk, and 
reason like men, much sooner than their neigh- 
bours. I do not recollect any of their cotempo- 
raries, at my little seminary, who afterwards 
made any great figure as literary characters, ex- 
cept Dr. Tenant, who was chaplain to Colonel 
Fullarton's regiment, and who is now in the 
East Indies. He is a man of genius and learn- 
ing; yet affable, and free from pedantry. 

I\Ii-. Burnes, in a short time, found that he 
had overrated Mount Oliphaut, and that he 
could not rear his numerous family upon it. — 
After being there some years, he removed to 
Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton, where, I 
believe, Robert wrote most of his poems. 

But here, Sir, you will permit me to pause. 
I can tell you but little more relative to our 
poet. I shall, however, in my next, send yon 
a copy of one of his letters to me, about the 
year 1783. I received one since, but it is mis- 
laid. Please remember me, in the best man- 
ner, to my worthy friend Mr. Adair, when you 
see him or write to him. 

Hart Street, Bloomsbury Square, 
London, Feb. 22, 1799. 



No. Lxvni. 



FROM PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART 



DR. MOORE, 

CONTAINING HIS SKETCHES OF THE POET. 

The first time I saw Robert Bums was on 
the 23d of October, 1786, when he dined at my 
house in Ayrshire, together with our common 
friend Mr. John Alackenzie, surgeon in Mauch- 
line, to whom I am indebted tor the pleasure of 
his acquaintance. I am enabled to mention the 
date particularly, by some verses which Burns 
wrote after he returned home, and in which the 
day of our meeting is recorded. My excellent 
and much lamented friend, the late Basil, Lord 
Daer, happened to arrive at Catrine the same 
day, and by the kindness and frankness of his 
manners, left an impression on the mind of the 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



293 



poet, which never \ras effaced. The verses I 
allude to are among the most imperfect of liis 
pieces ; but a few stanzas may perliaps be an 
object of curiosity to you, both on account of 
the character to which they relate, and of tl 
light which they throw on the situation and 
feelings of the writer, before his name was 
known to the public. * 

I cannot positively say, at this distance of 
time, whether, at the period of our first ac 
quaintance, the Kilmarnock edition of his poems 
had been just published, or was yet in the press. 
I suspect that the latter was the case, as 1 have 
still in my possession copies in his own hand- 
writing, of some of his favourite performances ; 
particularly of his verses " on turning up a 
Mouse with his plough ;" — " on the Mountain 
Daisy ;" and " the Lament." On my return to 
Edinburgh, T showed the volume, and mention- 
ed what I knew of the author's history, to se- 
veral of my friends, and among others, to Mr. 
Henry Mackenzie, who first recommended him 
to public notice in the 97tli number of The 
Lounger. 

At this time Bums's prospects in life were so 
extremely gloomy, that he had seriously formed 
n plan of going out to Jamaica in a very humble 
situation, not, however, without lamenting, that 
his want of patronage should force him to think 
of a project so repugnant to his feelings, when 
his ambition aimed at no higher mi object than 
the station of an exciseman or ganger in his own 
country. 

His manners were then, as they continued 
ever afterwards, simple, manly, and indepen- 
dent ; strongly expressive of conscious genius 
and worth ; but without any thing that indica- 
ted forwardness, arrogance, or vanity. He took 
his share in conversation, but not more than 
belonged to him ; and listened with apparent 
attention and deference, on subjects where his 
want of education deprived him of the means of 
information. If there had been a little more of 
gentleness and accommodation in his temper, he 
would, I think, have been still more interest- 
ing ; but he had been accustomed to give law 
in the circle of his ordinary acquaintance ; ahd 
his dread of any thing approaching to meanness 
or servility, rendered his manner somewhat de- 
cided and hard. Nothing, perhaps, was more 
remarkable among his various attainments, than 
the fluency, and precision, and originality of 
his language, when he spoke in company ; more 
particularly as he aimed at purity in his turn of 
expression, and avoided more successfully than 
most Scotchmen, the peculiarities of Scottish 
phraseology. 

He came to Edinburgh early in the winter 
following, and remained there for several months. 
By whose advice he took this step, I am unable 
to say. Perhaps it was suggested only by his 
own curiosity to see a little more of the world ; 
but, I confess, I dreaded the consequences from 



See Songs, p. 210. 



the first, and always wished that his pursuits 
and habits should continue the same as in the 
former part of life ; with the addition of, what 
I considered as then completely within his reach, 
a good farm on moderate terms, in a part of the 
country agreeable to his taste. 

The attentions he received during his stay in 
town from all ranks and descriptions of persons, 
were such as would have turned any head but 
bis own. I cannot say that I could perceive 
any unfavourable effect which they left on his 
mind. He retained the same simplicity of man- 
ners and appearance which had struck me so 
forcibly when I first saw him in the country ; 
nor did he seem to feel any additional self-im- 
portance from the number and rank of his new 
ac(iuaintance. His dress was perfectly suited to 
his station, plain and unpretending, with a suf- 
ficient attention to neatness. If I recollect right 
he always wore boots ; and, when on more than 
usual ceremony, buck-skin breeches. 

The variety of his engagements, while in 
Edinburgh, prevented me from seeing him so 
often as I could have wished. In the course of 
the spring he called on me once or twice, at 
my request, early in the morning, and walked 
with me to Braid-Hills, in the neighbourhood 
of the town, when he charmed me still more by 
his private conversation, than he had ever done 
in company. He was passionately fond of the 
beauties of nature ; and I recollect once he told 
me, when I was admiring a distant prospect in 
one of our morning walks, that the sight of so 
many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his 
mind, which none could understand who had 
not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and 
the worth which they contained. 

In his political principks he was then a Ja- 
cobite ; which was perhaps owing partly to 
this, that his father was originally from the es- 
tate of Lord Mareschall. Indeed he did not 
appear to have thought much on such subjects, 
nor very consistently. He had a very strong 
sense of religion, and expressed deep regret at 
the levity with which he had heard it treated 
occasionally in some convivial meetings which 
he frequented. I speak of him as he was in 
the winter of 1 78G-7 ; for afterwards we met 
but seldom, and our conversations turned chief- 
ly on his literary projects, or his private affairs. 
I do not recollect whether it appears or not 
from any of your letters to me, that you had 
ever seen Burns. If you have, it is superfluous 
for me add, that the idea which his conversa- 
tion conveyed of the powers of his mind, ex- 
ceeded, if possible, that which is suggested by 
his writings. Among the j)oets whom I have 
happened to know, I have been struck, in more 
than one instance, with the unaccountable dis- 
parity between their general talents, and the oc- 
casional inspirations of their more favoured mo- 
ments. But all the faculties of Burns's mind 
were, as far as I could judge, equally vigorous ; 
and his predilection for poetry was rather the 
result of his own enthusiastic and impassioned 



294 



BURNS' WORKS. 



temper, than of a genius exclusively adapted to 
that species of composition. From his conver- 
sation I should have pronounced him to bo fit- 
ted to excel in whatever walk of ambition he 
had chosen to exert his abilities. 

Among the subjects on which he was accus- 
tomed to dwell, the characters of the individu- 
als with whom he happened to meet, was plain- 
ly a favourite one. The remarks he made on 
them were always shrewd and pointed, thous;h 
fi-equently inclining too much to sarcasm. His 
praise of those he loved was sometimes indiscri- 
minate and extravagant ; but this, I suspect, 
proceeded rather from the caprice and humour 
of the moment, than from the effects of attach- 
ment in blinding his judgment. His wit was 
ready, and always impressed with the marks of 
a vigorous understanding ; but, to my taste, 
not often pleasing or happy. His attempts at 
epigram, in his printed works, are the only per- 
formances, perhaps, that he has produced, to- 
tally unworthy of his genius. 

In summer, 1787, I passed some weeks in 
Ayrshire, and saw Burns occasionally. I think 
that he made a pretty long excursion that sea- 
son to the Highlands, and that he also visited 
what Beattie calls the Arcadian ground of Scot- 
land, upon the banks of the Teviot and the 
Tweed. 

I should have mentioned before, that not- 
withstanding various reports I heard during the 
preceding winter, of Burns's predilection for 
convivial, and not very select society, I should 
have concluded in favour of his habits of so- 
briety, from all of him that ever fell imder my 
own observation. He told me indeed himself, 
that the weakness of his stomach was such as 
to deprive him entirely of any merit in his tem- 
perance. I was however somewhat alarmed 
about the effect of his now comparatively seden- 
tary and luxurious life, when he confessed to 
me, the first night he spent in my house after 
his winter's campaign in town, that he had been 
much disturbed when in bed, by a palpitation 
at his heart, which, he said, was a complaint 
to which he had of late become subject. 

In the course of the same season, I was led 
by curiosity to attend for an hour or two a Ma- 
son-Lodge in Mauchline, where Burns presided. 
He had occasion to make some short unpre- 
meditated compliments to different individuals 
from whom he had no reason to expect a visit, 
and every thing he said was happily conceived, 
and forcibly as well as fluently expressed. If 
I am not mistaken, he told me, that in that 
village, before going to Edinburgh, he had be- 
longed to a small club of such of the inhabi- 
tants as had a taste for books, when they used 
to converse and debate on any interesting ques- 
tions that occurred to them in the course of 
their reading. His manner of speaking in pub- 
lic had evidently the marks of some practice in 
extempore elocution. 

I must not omit to mention, what I have al- 
ways considered as characteristical in a high 



degree of true genius, the extreme facility anA 
good nature of his taste, in judging of the com- 
positions of others, where there was any real 
ground for praise. I repeated to him many 
passages of English poetry with which he was 
unacquainted, and have more than once wit- 
lessed the tears of admiration and rapture with 
which he heard them. The collection of songa 
by Dr. Aiken, which I first put into his hands, 
he read with unmixed delight, notwithstanding 
his former efforts in that very difficult species 
of writing ; and I have little doubt that it had 
some effect in polishing his subsequent compo- 
sitions. 

In judging of prose, I do not think his taste 
was equally sound. I once read to him a pas- 
sage or two in Franklin's Works, which I 
thought very happily executed, upon the model 
of Addison ; but he did not appear to relish, or 
to perceive the beauty which they derived from 
their exquisite simplicity, and spoke of them 
with indifference, when compared with the 
point, and antithesis, and quaintness of Junius. 
The influence of this taste is very perceptible 
in his own prose compositions, although their 
great and various excellencies render some of 
them scarcely less objects of wonder than his 
poetical performances. The late Dr. Robertson 
used to say, that, considering his education, the 
former seemed to him the more extraordinary of 
the two. 

His memory was uncommonly retentive, at 
least for poetry, of which he recited to me fre- 
quently long compositions with the most mi- 
nute accuracy. They were chiefly ballads, and 
other pieces in our Scottish dialect ; great part 
of them (he told me) he had learned in his 
childhood, from his mother, who delighted in 
such recitations, and whose poetical taste, rude 
as it probably was, gave, it is presumable, the 
first direction to her son's genius. 

Of the more polished verses which acciden- 
tally fell into his hands in his early years, he 
mentioned particularly the recommendatory 
poems, by different authors, prefixed to Hervey's 
Meditations ; a book which has always had a 
very wide circulation among such of the coun- 
try people of Scotland, as affect to unite some 
degree of taste with their religious studies. And 
these poems (although they are certainly below 
mediocrity) he continued to read with a degree 
of rapture beyond expression. He took notice 
of this fact himself, as a proof how much the 
taste is liable to be influenced by accidental cir- 
cumstances. 

His father appeared to me, from the account 
he gave of him, to have been a respectable and 
worthy character, possessed of a mind superior 
to what might have been expected from his 
station in life. He ascribed much of his own 
principles and feelings to the early impressions 
he had received from his instru(;tions and exam- 
ple. I recollect that he once applied to him 
(and he added, that the passiige was a literal 
statement of fact,) the two last lines of the foU 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



295 



lowing passage ia the Minstrel ; the whole of 
which he repeated with great euthusiasm : 

" Shall I be left forgotten in the dust, 

When fate, relenting, lets the flower revive ; 
Shall nature's voice, to man aloue unjust, 

Bid him, though doom'd to perish, hope to 
live ?" 
Is it for this fair Virtue oft must strive 

With disappointment, penury, and pain? 
No ! Heaven's immortal spring shall yet arrive j 

And man's majestic beauty bloom again. 
Bright through th' eternal year of love's trium- 
phant reign. 

This truth sublime, his simple sire had tauyht : 
In sooth, 'twas almost all the shepherd knew. 

With respect to Burns's early education, I 
cannot say any thing with certainty. He al- 
ways spoke with respect and gratitude of the 
school-master who had taught him to read Eng- 
lish ; and who, finding in his scholar a more 
than ordinary ardour for knowledge, had been 
at pains to instruct him in the grammatical 
principles of the language. He began the study 
of Latin, but dropped it before he had finished 
the verbs. I have sometimes heard him quote 
a few Latin words, such as omnia vincit amor, 
&c., but they seemed to be such as he had 
caught from conversation, and which he re- 
peated by rote. I think he had a project, after 
he came to Edinburgh, of prosecuting the study 
under his intimate friend, the late Mv. Nicoll, 
one of the masters of the grammar-school here ; 
but I do not know that he ever proceeded so 
far as to make the attempt. 

He certainly possessed a smattering of French ; 
and, if he had an affectation in any thing, 
it was in introducing occasionally a word or 
phrase from that language. It is possible that 
his knowledge in this respect might be more 
extensive than I suppose it to be ; but this you 
can learn from his more intimate acquaintance. 
It would be worth while to inquire, whether 
he was able to read the French authors with 
such facility as to receive from them any im- 
provement to his taste. For my own part, I 
doubt it much — nor would I believe it, but on 
very strong and pointed evidence. 

If my memory does not fail me, he was well 
instructed in arithmetic, and knew something 
of practical geometry, particularly of surveying. 
— All his other attainments were entirely his 
own. 

The last time I saw him was during the win- 
ter, 1788-89 ; when he passed an evening with 
me at Drumsheugh, in the neighbourhood of 
Edinburgh, where I was then living. j\Iy friend 
Mr. Alison was the only other person in com- 
pany. I never saw him more agreeable or in- 
teresting. A present which INIr. Alison sent 
him afterwards of his £ssays on 2'aste, drew 
from Burns a letter of acknowledgment, which 
I remember to have read with some degree of 



surprise at the distinct conception he appeared 
from it to have formed, of the general princi- 
ples of the doctrine of ai,sociation. When I 
saw ]Mi-. Alison in Shropshire last autumn, I 
forgot to inquire if the letter be still in exist- 
ence. If it is, you may easily procure it, by 
means of our friend INIr. Houlbrooke. 



No. LXIX. 
FROM GILBERT BURNS 

TO 

DR. CURRIE, 

GIVING THE HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE 
PRINCIPAL POEMS. 

It may gratify curiosity to know some particu- 
lars of the history of the preceding Poems, 
on which the celebrity of our Bard has been 
hitherto founded ; and with this view the 
following extract is made from a letter of 
Gilbert Burns, the brother of our Poet, and 
his friend and confidant from his earliest 
years. 

DEAR SIR, Mossgid, 2d April, 1798. 

Your letter of the 14th of March I received 
in due course, but, from the hurry of the sea- 
son, have been hitherto hindered from answer- 
ing it. I will now try to give you what satis- 
faction I can in regard to the particulars you 
mention. I cannot pretend to be very accurate 
in respect to the dates of the poems, but none 
of them, except Winter, a Dirge, (which was 
a juvenile production), the Death and Dying 
Words of poor Mailie, and some of the songs, 
were composed before the year 1784. The cir- 
cumstances of the poor sheep were pretty much 
as he has described them. He had, partly by 
way of frolic, bought a ewe and two lambs from 
a neighbour, and she was tethered in a field ad- 
joining the house at Lochlie. He and I were 
going out with our teams, and our two younger 
brothers to drive for us, at mid-day, when 
Hugh Wilson, a curious looking awkward boy, 
clad in plaiding, came to us with much anxiety 
in his face, with the information that the ewe 
had entangled herself in the tether, and was ly- 
ing in the ditch. Robert was much tickled 
with Hughoc's appearance and postures on the 
occasion. Poor Mailie was set to rights, and 
when we returned from the plough in the even- 
ing, he repeated to me her Death and Dying 
Words pretty much in the way they now stand. 
Among the earliest of his poems was the 
7'Jpistle to Davie. Robert often composed with- 
out any regular plan. ^Vllen any thing made a 
strong impiessiou on his miud, so as to rouse it 



296 



BURNS' WORKS. 



to poetic exertion, he would give way to the 
impulse, and embody the thought in rhyme. 
If he hit on two or three stanzas to please him, 
he would then think of proper introductory, 
connecting, and concluding stanzas ; hence the 
middle of a poem was often first produced. It 
was, I think, in summer 17B4, when in the 
interval of harder labour, he and I were weed- 
ing iu the garden (kailyard) that he repeated to 
me the principal part of this epistle. I believe 
the first idea of Robert's becoming an author 
was started on this occasion. I was much 
pleased with the epistle, and said to him I was 
of opinion it would bear being printed, and 
that it would be well received by people of 
taste ; that I thought it at least equal, if uot 
superior, to many of Allan Ramsay's epistles, 
and that the merit of these, and much other 
Scotch poetry, seemed to consist principally in 
the knack of the expression — but here, there 
was a strain of interesting sentiment, and the 
Scotticism of the language scarcely seemed af- 
fected, but appeared to be the natural language 
of the poet ; that, besides, there was certainly 
some novelty in a poet pointing out the conso- 
lations that were in store for him when he 
should go a-begging. Robert seemed very well 
pleased with my criticism ; and we talked of 
sending it to some magazine, but as this plan 
afforded no opportunity of knowing how it 
would take, the idea was dropped. 

It was, I think, in the winter following, as 
we were going together with carts for coal to 
the family fire (and I could yet point out the 
particular spot), that the author first repeated 
to me the Address to the Deil. The curious 
idea of such an address was suggested to him, 
by running over in his mind the many ludicrous 
accounts and representations we have, from va- 
rious quarters, of this august personage. Death 
and Dr. Hornbook, though not published in 
the Kilmarnock edition, was produced early in 
the year 178a. The schoolmaster of Tarbolton 
parish, to eke up the scanty subsistence allowed 
to that useful class of men, had set up a shop 
of grocery goods. Having accidentally fallen in 
with some medical books, and become most 
hobby-horsically attached to the study of medi- 
cine, he had added the sale of a few medicines 
to his little trade. He had got a shop-bill 
printed, at the bottom of which, overlooking 
his own incapacity, he had advertised, that 
" Advice would be given in common disorders 
at the shop, gratis," Robert was at a mason- 
meeting, in Tarbolton, when the " Dominie" 
unfortunately made too ostentatious a display of 
his medical skill. As he parted in the evening 
from this mixture of pedantry and physic, at 
the place where he describes his meeting with 
Death, one of those floating ideas of apparition, 
he mentions in his letter to Dr. Moore, crossed 
his mind ; this set him to work for the vest of 
the way home. These circumstauces he relat- 
ed when he repc'ated the verses to me next af- 
ternoon, as I was holding the plough, aud he 



was letting the water off the field beside me 
The Epistle to John Lupraik was produced 
exactly on the occasion described by the author. 
He says in that poem, On fasten e'en he had a 
rockin, I believe he has omitted the word 
rocking in the glossary. It is a term derived 
from those primitive times, when the country- 
women employed their spare hours in spinning 
on the rock, or distaff. This simple instrument 
is a very portable one, and well fitted to the so- 
cial inclination of meeting in a neighbour's 
house ; hence the phrase of going a-rocking or 
witli the rock. As the connection the phrase 
had with the implement was forgotten when 
the rock gave way to the spinning-wheel, the 
phrase came to be used by both sexes on social 
occasions, and men talk of going with their 
rocks as well as women. 

It was at one of these rockings at our house, 
when we had twelve or fifteen young people with 
their rocks, that Lapraik's song, beginning — . 
" When I upon thy bosom lean," was sung, 
and we are informed who was the author. 
Upon this Robert wrote his first epistle to Lap- 
raik ; aud his second in reply to his answer. 
The verses to the Mouse and Mountain-Daisy 
were composed on the occasions mentioned, and 
while the author was holding the plough ; I 
could point out the particular spot where each 
was composed. Holding the plough was a fa- 
vourite situation with Robert for poetic compo- 
sitions, and some of his best verses were pro- 
duced while he was at that exercise. Several 
of the poems were produced for the purpose of 
bringing forward some favourite sentiment of the 
author. He used to remark to me, that he 
could not well conceive a more mortifying pic- 
ture of human life than a man seeking work. 
In casting about in his mind how this sentiment 
might be brought forward, the elegy Man teas 
made to Mourn, was composed. Robert had 
frequently remarked to me, that he thought 
there was something ])eculiarly venerable in the 
phrase, " Let us worship God," used by a de- 
cent sober head of a family introducing family 
worship. To this sentiment of the author the 
world is indebted for the Cotter s Saturday 
Night. The hint of the plan, and the title of 
the poem, were taken from Fergussou's Farmer s 
Ingle. When Robert had not some pleasure in 
view in which I was not thought fit to partici- 
pate, we used frequently to walk together when 
the weather was favourable, on the Sunday af- 
ternoons, (those precious breathing-times to the 
labouring part of the comnuiuity), and eujoyed 
such Sundays as would make one regret to see 
their number abridged. It was in one of these 
walks that I first had the pleasure of hearinsj 
the author repeat the Cotter's Saturday Night. 
I do not recollect to have read or heard any 
thing by which I was more highly electrified. 
The fifth and sixth stanzas, and the eighteenth, 
thrilled with pecuhar ecstasy through my soul. 
I mention this to you, that you may see what 
hit the taste of ualcttered criticism. 1 should 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



297 



be glad to know, if tlie enlightened mind and 
refined taste of l\Ir. Roscoe, who has borne snch 
honourable testiinony to this poem, aa;rees with 
me in the selection. Fergusson, in his Hallow 
FaiT of Edinburgh, I believe, likewise furnish- 
ed a bint of the title and plan of the Holy Fair. 
The farcical scene the poet there describes 
was often a favourit-e field of his observation, 
and the most of the inciflents he mentions 
had actually passed before his eyes. It is scarce- 
ly necessary to mention, that the Lament was 
composed on that unfortunate passage in his ma- 
trimonial history, which I have mentioned in 
my letter to Mrs. Dunlop, after the first distrac- 
tion of his f«.elings had a little subsided. The 
Tale of Twa Dogs was composed after the re- 
solution of publishing was nearly taken. Robert 
had had a dog, which he called Luath, that was 
a great favourite. The dog had been killed by 
the wanton cruelty of some person the night be- 
fore my father's death. Robert said to me, that 
he should like to confer such immortality as he 
could bestow upon his old friend Luath, and 
that he had a great mind to introduce something 
into the book under the title of Stanzas to the 
Memory of a quadruped Friend ; but this plan 
was given up for the Tale as it now stands. 
Ccesar was merely the creature of the poet's 
imagination, created for the purpose of holding 
chat with his favourite Luath. The first time 
Robert heard the spinnet played upon, was at the 
house of Dr. Lawrie, then minisier of the parish 
of Loudon, now in Glasgow, having given up 
the parish in favour of his son. Dr. Lawrie 
has several daughters ; one of them played ; t'le 
father and mother led down the dance ; the rest 
of the sisters, the brother, the poet, and the 
other guest, mixed in it. It was a delightful 
family scene for our pcet, then lately introduced 
to the world. His mind was roused to a ])oetic 
enthusiasm, and the stanzas, p. 36, were left in 
the room where he slept. It was to Dr. Law- 
rie that Dr. Blacklock's letter was addressed, 
which my brother, in his letter to Dr. jNIoore, 
mentions as the reason of his going to Edinburgh. 
When my father feued his little property near 
Alloway Kirk, the wall of the church -yard had 
gone to ruin, and cattle had free liberty of pas- 
turing in it. INIy father, with two or three other 
neighbours, joined in an application to the town 
council of Ayr, who were superiors of the ad- 
joining land, for liberty to rebuild it, and raised 
by subscription a sum for enclosing this ancient 
cemetery with a wall ; hence he came to con- 
sider it as his burial-place, and we learned that 
reverence for it, people generally have for the 
burial-place of their ancestors. My brother was 
living in EUisland, when Captain Grose, on his 
peregrinations through Scotland, staid some time 
at Carse-house, in the neighbourhood, with 
Captain Robert Riddel, of Glen-Riddell, a parti- 
cular friend of my brother's. The Antiquarian 
and the Poet were " Unco pack and thick the- 
fither." Robert requested of Captain Grose, 
ivhen he should come to Ayrshire, that he would 



make a drawing of Alloway Kirk, as it was the 
burial-place of his father, and where he himself 
had a sort of claim to lay down his bones when 
they should be no longer serviceable to hiin ; 
and added, by way of encouragement, that it 
was the scene of many a good story of witches 
and apparitions, of which he knew the Captain 
was very fond. The C-iptain agreed to the re- 
quest, provided the Poet would furnish a witch- 
story, to be printed along with it. Tam o' 
Shajiter was produced on this occasion, and was 
first published in Grose's Antiquities of Scot- 
laud. 

This poem is founded on a traditional story. 
The leading circumstances of a man riding home 
very late from Ayr, in a stormy night, his seeing 
a light in Alloway Kirk, his having the curiosity 
to look in, his seeing a dance of witches, with 
the devil playing on the bag-pipe to them, the 
scanty covering of one of the witches, which 
made him so far forget himself as to cry — " Weel 
loupen, short sark !" — with the melancholy ca- 
tastrophe of the piece ; is all a true story, that 
can 1)8 well attested by many respectable old 
people in that neighbourhood. 

1 do not at present recollect any circumstances 
respectig the other poems, that could be at all 
interesting ; even some of those I have mention- 
ed, I am afraid, may appear trifling enough, but 
you will only make use of what appears to you 
of consequence. 

The following Poems in the first Edinburgh 
edition, were not in that published in Kilmar- 
nock. Death and Dr. Hornbooh ; The Brigs 
of Ayr ; The Calf; (the poet had been with 
Mr. Gavin Hamilton in the morning, who said 
jocularly to him when he was going to church, 
in allusion to the injunction of some parents to 
their children, that he must be sure to bring 
him a note of the sermon at mid-day ; this ad- 
dress to the Reverend Gentleman on his text 
was accordingly produced). The Ordination; 
The Address to the Unco Guid ; Tam Sam- 
son's Elegy ; A Winter Night ; Stanzas on 
the same occasion as the preceding prayer ; 
Verses left at a Reverend Friend's house ; The 
firsl Psalm ; Prayer under the j^ressure of vio- 
lent aiiguish ; T'he first six verses of the nine- 
teenth Psalm ; Verses to Miss Logan, with 
Beattie's Poems ; To a Haggis ; Address to 
Fdinhurgh ; John Barleycorn ; When Guil- 
ford Guid ; Behind yon hills where Stinchar 
flows ; Green grow the Bashes ; Again re- 
joicing Nature sees ; The gloomy Night ; No 
Churchman am I. 



No. LXX. 
FROM GILBERT BURNS 

TO 

DR. CURRIE. 

Dinning, Dumfriesshire, 2ith Oct. 1800. 

DKAR SIR, 

Yours of the 17th instant came to my hand 
58 



298 



BURNS' WORKS. 



yesterday, and I sit down this afternoon to write 
you in return ; but when I shall be able to 
finish all I wish to say to you, I cannot tell. I 
am- sorry your conviction is not complete re- 
specting feck. There is no doubt that if you 
take two English words which appear synouy- 
inous to mony fecky and judge by the rules of 
English construction, it will appear a barbarism. 
I believe if you take this mode of translating 
from any language, the eflfect will frequently be 
the same. But if you take the expression mony 
feck to have, as I have stated it, the same mean- 
ing with the English expression very many, 
(and such license every translator must be al- 
lowed, especially when he translates from a 
simple dialect which has never been subjected 
to rule, and where the precise meaning of words 
is of consequence not minutely attended to), it 
will be well enough. One thing I am certain 
of, that ours is the sense universally understood 
in this country ; and I believe no Scotsman who 
has lived contented at home, pleased with the 
simple manners, the simple melodies, and the 
simple dialect of his native country, unvitiated 
by foreign intercourse, *' whose soul proud 
science never taught to stray," ever discovered 
barbarism in the song of Etrick Banks. 

The story you have heard of the gable of my 
father's house falling down, is simply as fol- 
lows : — When my father built his " clay big- 
gin," he put in two stone-jambs, as they are 
called, and a lintel, carrying up a chimney in 
his clay-gable. The consequence was, that as 
the gable subsided, the jambs, remaining firm, 
threw it off its centre ; and, one very stormy 
morning, when my brother was nine or ten 
days old, a little before day-light, a part of the 
gable fell out, and the rest appeared so shatter- 
ed, that my mother, with the young poet, had 
to be carried through the storm to a neighbour's 
house, where they remained a week till their 
own dwelling was adjusted. That you may not 
think too meanly of this house, or of my fa- 
ther's taste in building, by supposing the poet's 
description in the Vision (which is entirely a 
fancy picture) applicable to it, allow me to take 
notice to you, that the house consisted of a 
kitchen in one end, and a room in the other, 
with a fire-place and chimney ; that my father 
had constructed a concealed bed in the kitchen, 
with a small closet at the end, of the same ma- 
terials with the house, and, when altogether cast 
over, outside and in, with lime, it had a neat, 
comfortable appearance, such as no family of the 
same rank, in the present improved style of 
living, would think themselves ill-lodged in. I 
wish likewise to take notice in passing, that al- 
though the " Cotter," in the Saturday Night, 
is an exact copy of my father in his manners, 
his family devotion, and exhortations, yet the 
other parts of the description do not apply to 
our family. None of us were ever " at service 
out amang the neebors roun." Instead of our 
depositing our '* sair won penny-fee" with our 
parents, my father laboured hard, and lived with 



the most rigid economy, that he might be able 
to keep his children at home, thereby having an 
opportunity of watching the progress of our 
young minds, and forming in them early habits 
of piety and virtue ; and from this motive alone 
did he engage in farming, the source of all his 
difficulties and distresses. 

When I threatened you in my last with a 
long letter on the subject of the books I recom- 
mended to the Mauchline club, and the effects 
of refinement of taste on the labouring classes 
of men, I meant merely that I wished to write 
you on that subject, with the view that, in some 
future communication to the public, you might 
take up the subject more at large, that, by means 
of your happy manner of writing, the attention 
of people of power and influence might be fixed 
on it. I had little expectation, however, that 
I should overcome my indolence, and the diifi- 
culty of arranging my thoughts so far as to put 
ray threat in execution, till some time ago, be- 
fore I had finished my harvest, having a call 
from ]Mr. Ewari, with a message from you, 
pressing me to the performance of this task, I 
thought myself no longer at liberty to decline 
it, and resolved to set about it with my first 
leisure. I will now therefore endeavour to lay 
before you what has occurred to my mind on a 
subject where people capable cf observation, and 
of placing their remarks in a proper point of 
view, have seldom an opportunity of making 
their remarks on real life. In doing this I may 
perhaps be led sometimes to write more in the 
manner of a person communicating information 
to you which you did not know before, and at 
otlicr times more in the style of egotism than I 
would choose to do to any person in whose can- 
dour, and even personal good-will, I had less 
confidence. 

There are two several lines of study that open 
to every man as he enters life : the one, the ge- 
neral science of life, of duty, and of happiness ; 
the other, the particular arts of his employment 
or situation in society, and the several branches 
of knowledge therewith connected. This last is 
certainly indispensable, as nothing can be more 
disgraceful than ignorance in the way of one's 
own profession ; and whatever a man's specula- 
tive knowledge may be, if he is ill informed- 
there, he can neither be a usefid nor a respect- 
able member of society. It is nevertheless true, 
that " the proper study of mankind is man ;" 
to consider what duties are encumbent on him 
as a rational creature, and a member of society ;. 
how he may increase or secure his happiness ; 
and how he may prevent or soften the many 
miseries incident to human life. I think the 
pursuit of happiness is too frequently confined 
to the endeavour after the acquisition of wealth. 
I do not wi^h to be considered as an idle de- 
claimer against riches, which, after all that can 
be said against them, will still be considered by 
men of common sense as objects of importance ; 
and poverty will be felt as a sore evil, after all 
the fine things that can be said of its advaa 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



299 



tages ; oa the contrary I am of opinion, that a 
great proportion of the miseries of hfe arise from 
the want of economy, and a prudent attention 
to money, or the ill-directed or intemperate pur- 
suit of it. But however valuable riches may be 
as the means of comfort, independence, and the 
pleasure of doing good to others, yet I am of 
opinion, that they may be, and frequently are, 
purchased at too great a cost, and that sacrifices 
are made in the pursuit which the acquisition 
cannot compensate. I remember hearing my 
worthy teacher, Mr. Murdoch, relate an anec- 
dote to my father, which I think sets this mat- 
ter in a strong light, and perhaps was the ori- 
gin, or at least tended to promote this way of 
thinking in me. When Mr. Murdoch left Al- 
loway, he went to teach and reside in the family 
of an opulent farmer who had a number of sons. 
A neighbour coming on a visit, in the course of 
conversation asked the father how he meant to 
dispose of his sons. The father replied, that he 
had not determined. The visitor said, that were 
he in his place he would give them all good 
education and send them abroad, without (per- 
haps) having a precise idea where. The father 
objected, that many young men lost their health 
in foreign countries, and many their lives. True, 
replied the visitor, but as you have a number of 
eons, it will be strange if some one of them does 
not live and make a fortune. 

Let any person who has the feelings of a fa- 
ther comment on this story : but though few 
will avow, even to themselves, that such views 
govern their conduct, yet do we not daily see 
people shipping off their sons, (and who would 
do so by their daughters also, if there were any 
demand for them), that they may be rich or 
perish ? 

The education of the lower classes is seldom 
considered in any other point of view than as 
the means of raising them from that station to 
which they were born, and of making a fortune. 
I am ignorant of the mysteries of the art of ac- 
quiring a fortune without any thing to begin with, 
and cannot calculate, with any degree of exact- 
ness, the difficulties to be surmounted, the mor- 
tifications to be suffered, and the degradation 
of character to be submitted to, in lending one's 
self to be the minister of other people's vices, or 
in the practice of rapine, fraud, oppression, or 
dissimulation, in the progress ; but even when 
the wished for end is attained, it may be ques- 
tioned whether happiness be much increased by 
the change. When I have seen a fortunate ad- 
venturer of the lower ranks of life returned from 
the East or West Indies with all the hauteur of, 
a yulgar mind accustomed to be served by slaves, i 
assuming a character, which, from the early ha- 
bits of life, he is ill fitted to support, displaying [ 
magnificence which raises the envy of some, and 
the contempt of others ; claiming an equality i 
with the great, which they are unwilUng to al- I 
low ; inly pining at the precedence of the here- 
ditary gentry ; maddened by the polished inso- i 
lence of some of the unworthy part of them j | 



seeking pleasure in the society of men who can 
condescend to flatter him, and listen to his ab- 
surdity for the sake of a good dinner and good 
wine ; I cannot avoid concluding, that his bro- 
ther, or companion, who, by a diligent applica- 
tion to the labours of agriculture, or some use- 
ful mechanic employment, and the careful hus- 
banding of his gains, has acquired a competence 
in his station, is a much happier, and, in the 
eye of a person who can take an enlarged view 
of mankind, a much more respectable man. 

But the votaries of wealth may be considered 
as a great number of candidates striving for a 
few prizes, and whatever addition the successful 
may make to their pleasure or happiness, the 
disappointed will always have more to suffer, I 
am afraid, than those who abide coiitented in 
the station to which they were born. I wish, 
therefore, the education of the lower classes to 
be promoted and directed to their improvement 
as men, as the means of increasing their virtue, 
and opening to them new and dignified sources 
of pleasure and happiness. I have heard some 
people object to the education of the lower clas- 
ses of men, as rendering them less useful, by 
abstracting them from their proper business ; 
others, as tending to make them saucy to their 
superiors, impatient of their condition, and tur- 
bulent subjects; while you, with more huma- 
nity, have your fears alarmed, lest the delicacy 
of mind, induced by that sort of education and 
reading I recommend, should reuder the evils 
of their situation insupportable to them. I wish 
to examine the validity of each of these objec- 
tions, beginning with the one you have men- 
tioned. 

I do not mean to controvert your criticism of 
my favourite books, the Mirror and Lounger, 
although I understand there are people who 
think themselves judges, who do not agree with 
you. The acquisition of knowledge, except 
what is connected with human life and con- 
duct, or the particular business of his employ- 
ment, does not appear to me to be the fittest 
pursuit for a peasant. I would say with the 
poet, 

" How empty learning, and how vain is art, 
Save where it guides the life, or mends the 
heart !" 

There seems to be a considerable latitude in 
the use of the word taste. I understand it to 
be the perception and relish of beauty, order, 
or any other thing, the contemplation of which 
gives pleasure and delight to the mind. I sup- 
pose it is in this sense you wish it to be under- 
stood. If I am right, the taste which these 
books are calculated to cultivate, (beside the 
taste for fine writing, which many of the papers 
tend to improve and to gratify), is what is pro- 
per, consistent, and becoming in human cha- 
racter and conduct, as almost every paper relates 
to these subjects. 

I am sorry I have not these books by me» 



300 



BURNS' WORKS. 



that I might point out some instances. I re- 
mennber two ; one, the beautiful story of La 
Roche, where, beside the pleasure one derives 
froA a beautiful simple story told in M'Kenzie's 
happiest manner, the mind is led to taste, with 
heartfelt rapture, the consolation to be derived 
in deep affliction, from habitual devotion and 
trust in Almighty God. The other, the story 

of General W , where the reader is led to 

have a high relish for that firmness of mind 
which disregards appearances, the common forms 
and vanities of life, for the sake of doing justice 
in a case which was out of the reach of human 
laws. 

Allow me then to remark, that if the mora- 
lity of these books is subordinate to the cultiva- 
tion of taste ; that taste, that refinement of 
mind and delicacy of sentiment which they are 
intended to give, are the strongest guard and 
surest foundation of morality and virtue. Other 
moralists guard, as it were, the overt act ; these 
papers, by exalting duty into sentiment, are cal- 
culated to make every deviation from rectitude 
and propriety of conduct, painful to the mind, 

" Whose temper'd powers, 
Refine at length, and every passion wears 
A chaster, milder, more attractive mien." 

I readily grant you that the refinement of 
jnind which I contend for, increases our sensi- 
bility to the evils of life ; but what station of 
life is without its evils ! There seems to be no 
such thing as perfect happiness in this world, 
and we must balance the pleasure and the pain 
which we derive from taste, before we can pro- 
perly appreciate it in the case before us. I ap- 
prehend that on a minute examination it will 
appear, that the evils peculiar to the lower ranks 
of life, derive their power to wound us, more 
from the suggestions of false pride, and the 
♦' contagion of luxury weak and vile," than the 
refinement of our taste. Tt was a favourite re- 
mark of my brother's, that there was no part 
of the constitution of our nature, to which we 
were more indebted, than that by which " cus- 
tom makes things familiar and easr/," (a copy 
Mr. Murdoch used to set us to write), and there 
is little labour which custom will not make easy 
to a man in health, if he is not ashamed of his 
employment, or does not begin to compare hi 
situation with those he may see going about at 
their ease. 

But the man of enlarged mind feels the re- 
spect due to him as a man ; he has learned that 
no employment is dishonourable in itself; that 
while he performs aright the duties of that sta- 
tion in which God has placed him, he is as 
great as a king in the eyes of Him whom he is 
principally desii-ous to please ; for the man of 
taste, who is constantly obliged to labour, must 
of necessity be religious. If you teach him only 
to reason, you may make him an atheist, a dema- 
gogue, or any vile thing ; but if you teach him 
to feel, his feehngs can only iind their proper 



and natural relief in devotion and religious re- 
signation. He knows that those people who are 
to appearance at ease, are not M'ithout their 
share of evils, and that even toil itself is not 
destitute of advantages. He listens to the words 
of his favourite poet : 

" O mortal man, that livest here by toil. 

Cease to repine and grudge thy hard estate ; 
That like an emmet thou must ever moil, 

Is a sad sentence of an ancient date ; 
And, certes, there is for it reason great ; 

Although sometimes it makes thee weep and 
wail, 
And curse thy stars, and early drudge and late ; 

Withouten that would come a heavier bale. 
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale !" 

And, while he repeats the words, the grateful 
recollection comes across his mind, how often he 
has derived ineffable pleasure from the sweet 
song of " Nature's darling child." I can say, 
from my own experience, that there is no sort 
of farm labour inconsistent with the most re- 
fined and pleasurable state of the mind that I 
am acquainted with, thrashing alone excepted. 
That, indeed, I have always considered as in- 
supportable drudgery, and think the ingenious 
mechanic who invented the thrashing machine, 
ought to have a statue among the benefactors of 
his country, and should be placed in the niche 
next to the person who introduced the culture 
of potatoes into this island. 

Perhaps the thing of most importance in the 
education of the common people is, to prevent 
the intrusion of artificial wants. I bliss the 
memory of my worthy father for almost every 
thing in the dispositions of my mind, and my 
habits of life which I can approve of; and for 
none more than the pains he took to impress my 
mind with the sentiment, that nothing was more 
unworthy the character of a man, than that his 
happiness should in the least depend on what he 
shou!d eat or drink. So early did he impress 
my mind with this, that although I was as fond 
of sweetmeats as childr^-n t,-enerally are, yet I sel- 
dom laid out any of the half-pence which rela- 
tions or neighbours gave me at fairs, in the pur- 
chase of them ; and if I did, every mouthful I 
swallowed was accompanied with shame and re- 
morse ; and to this hour I never indulge in the 
use of any delicacy, hut I feel a considerable de- 
gree of self-reproach and alarm for the degrada- 
tion of the human character. Such a habit of 
thinking I consider as of great consequence, 
both to the virtue and happiness of men in the 
lower ranks of life. And thus. Sir, I am .of 
opinion, that if their minds are early and deeply 
imprest with a sense of the dignity of man, as 
such ; with the love of independence and of in- 
dustry, economy and temperance, as the most 
obvious means of making themselves indepen- 
dent, and the virtues most becoming their situ- 
ation, and necessary to their happiness ; men in 
the lower ranks of life may partake of the plea • 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



301 



surcs to be dciived from the perusal of books 
calculated to improve the mind and refine the 
taste, without any danger of becoming more un- 
happy in their situation, or discontented with it. 
Nor do I think there is any danger of their be- 
coming less useful. There are some hours every 
day that the most constant labourer is neither 
at work nor asleep. These hours are either ap- 
propriated to amusement or to sloth. If a taste 
for employing these hours in reading were cul- 
tivated, I do not suppose that the return to la- 
bour would be more difficult. Every one will 
allow, that the attachment to idle amusements, 
or even to sloth, has as powerful a tendency to 
abstract men from their proper business, as the 
attachment to books ; while the one dissipates 
the mind, and the other tends to increase its 
powers of self-government. To those who are 
afraid that the improvement of the minds of the 
common people might be dangerous to the state, 
or the established order of society, I would re- 
mark, that turbulence and commotion are cer- 
tainly very inimical to the feelings of a refined 
mind. Let the matter be brought to the test 
of experience and observation. Of what de 
scription of people are mobs and' insurrections 
composed ? Are they not universally owing to 
the want of enlargement and improvement of 
mind among the common people ? Nay, let 
any one recollect the characters of those who 
formed the calmer and more deliberate associa 
tions, which lately gave so much alarm to the 
government of this country. I suppose few of 
the common people who were to be found in 
such societies, had the education and turn of 
mind I have been endeavouring to recommend. 
Allow me to suggest one reason for endeavour- 
ing to enlighten the minds of the common peo- 
ple. Their morals have hitherto been guarded 
by a sort of dim religious awe, which from a 
variety of causes seems wearing off. I think the 
alteration in this respect considerable, in the 
short period of my observation. I have already 
given my opinion of the effects of refinement of 
mind on morals and virtue. Whenever vulgar 
minds begin to shake off the dogmas of the re 
ligion in which they have been educated, the 
progress is quick and immediate to downright 
infidelity : and nothing but refinement of mind 
can enable them to distinguish between the pure 
essence of religion, and the gross systems which 
men have been perpetually connecting it with 
In addition to what has already been done foi 
the education of the common people of this coun- 
try, in the establishment of parish schools, 
wish to see the salaries augmented in some pro 
portion to the present expense of living, and tin 
earnings of people of similar rank, endowments 
and usefulness, in society ; and I hope that the 
liberality of the present age will be no longer 
disgracied by refusing, to so useful a class of men, 
such encouragement as may make parish schools 
worth the attention of men fitted for the impor- 
tant duties of that office. In filling up the va- 
cancies, I would have more attention paid to the 



candidate's capacity of reading the English lan- 
guage with grace and propriety ; to his under- 
standing thoroughly, and having a high relish 
for the beauties of English authors, both in poetry 
and j)rose ; to that good sense and knowledge 
of human nature which would enable him to ac- 
quire some influence on the minds and affections 
of his scholars ; to the general worth of his cha- 
racter, and the love of his king and his country, 
than to his proficiency in the knowledge of Latin 
and Greek. I would then have a sort of high 
English class established, not only for the pur- 
pose of teaching the pupils to read in that grace- 
ful and agreeable manner that might make them 
fond of reading, but to make them understand 
what they read, and discover the beauties of the 
author, in composition and sentiment. I would 
have established in every parish a small circu- 
lating library, consisting of the books which the 
young people had read extracts from in the col- 
lections they had read at school, and any other 
books well calculated to refine the raiud, improve 
the moral feelings, recommend tlu; practice of 
virtue, and communicate such knowledge as 
might be useful and suitable to the labouring 
classes of men. I would have the scdiool master 
act as librarian, and in recommending books to 
his young friends, formerly his pupils, and let- 
ting in the light of them upon their young minds, 
he should have the assistance of the minister. 
If once such education were become general, 
the low delights of the public-house, and other 
scenes of riot and depravity, would be contemn- 
ed and neglected, while industry, order, cleanli- 
ness, and every virtue which taste and indepen- 
dence of mind could recommend, would prevail 
and flourish. Thus possessed of a virtuous and 
enlightened populace, with high delight I should 
consider my native country as at the head of all 
the nations of the earth, ancient or modern. 

Thus, Sir, have I executed my threat to the 
fullest extent, in regard to the length of my let- 
ter. If I had not presumed on doing it raorw 
to my liking, I should not have undertaken it ; 
but I have not time to attempt it anew ; uor, if 
I would, am I certain that I should succeed any 
better. I have learned to have less confidence 
iu my capacity of writing on such subjects. 

I am much obliged by your kind inquiries 
about my situation and prospects. I am much 
pleased with the soil of this farm, and with the 
terms on which I possess it. I receive great 
encouragement likewise in building, enclosing, 
and other conveniences, from my landlord Mr. 
(j. S. IMonteith, whose general character and 
conduct, as a landlord and country gentleman, 
I am highly pleased with. But the land is in 
such a state as to require a considerable imme- 
! diate outlay of money" in the purchace of ma- 
I nure, the grubbing of brush-wood, removing of 
stones, &c. which twelve years' struggle with a 
farm of a cold ungrateful soil has but ill prepar- 
ed me for. If I can get these things done, 
however, to my mind, I think there iy next to 
a certainty that in five or six years I shall be in 



302 



BURNS' WORKS. 



a hopeful way of attaining a situation which I 
think is ehgible for happiness as any one I 
know ; for I have always been of opinion, that 
if a man, bred to the habits of a farming hfe, 
who possesses a farm of good soil, on such terms 
as enables him easily to pay all demands, is not 
happy, he ought to look somewhere else than to 
his situation for the causes of his uneasiness. 

I beg you will present my most respectful 
compliments to Mrs. Currie, and remember me 
to Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe, and Mr. Roscoe jun. 
whose kind attentions to me, when in Liverpool, 
I shall never forget. — I am, dear Sir, your most 
obedient, and much obliged humble servant, 

GILBERT BURNS. 



DEATH AND CHARACTER OF 
GILBERT BURNS. 

This most worthy and talented individual 
died at Grant's Braes, in the neighbourhood of 
Haddington, and on the estate of Lady Blan- 
tyre, for whom he was long factor, on Sunday 
8th April 1827, in the sixty-seventh year of his 
age.* He had no fixed or formed complaint, 
but for several months preceding his dissolution, 
there was a gradual decay of the powers of na- 
ture ; and the infirmities of age, combined with 
severe domestic afiiiction, hastened the release 
of as pure a spirit as ever inhabited a human 
bosom. On the ^th of January he lost a daugh- 
ter who had long been the pride of the family 
hearth ; and on the 26 th of February following, 
his youngest son, — a youth of great promise, 
died in Edinburgh of typhus fever, just as he 
was about being licensed for the ministry. These 
repeated trials were too much for the excellent 
old man ; the mind which, throughout a long 
and blameless life, had pointed unweariedly to 
its home in the skies, ceased as it were, to hold 
communion with things earthly, and on the re- 
currence of that hallowed morning, which, like 
his sire of old, he had been accustomed to sanc- 
tify, he expired without a groan or struggle, in 
peace, and even love with all mankind, and in 
humble confidence of a blessed immortality. — 
The early life of Mr. Gilbert Burns is inti- 
mately blended with that of the poet. He was 
eighteen months younger than Robert — posses- 
sed the same penetrating judgment, and, accord- 
ing to Mr. Murdoch, their first instructor, sur- 
passed him in vivacity till pretty nearly the age 
of manhood. When the greatest of our bards 
was invited by Dr. Blacklock to visit Edinburgh, 
the subject of the present imperfect Memoir was 
struggling in the churlish farm of Mossgiel, and 
toiling late and early to keep a house over his 
aged mother, and unprotected sisters. In these 
circumstances, the poet's success was the first 
thing that stemmed the ebbing tide of the for- 
tunes of his family. In settling with Mr. Creech 



in February 1788, he received, as the profits of 
his second publication, about .£500, and with 
that generosity, which formed a part of his na- 
ture, he immediately presented Gilbert witn 
nearly the half of his whole wealth. Thus suc- 
coured, the deceased married aMissBreckenridge, 
and removed to a better farm (Dinning in Dum- 
friesshire ), but still reserved a seat at the fami- 
ly board for his truly venerable mother, who died 
a few years ago. While in Dinning, he was re- 
commended to Lady Blantyre ; and though our 
memory does not serve us precisely as to date, 
he must have been an inhabitant of East Lothian, 
for very nearly a quarter of a century. Her 
Ladyship's affairs were managed with the greatest 
fidelity and prudence ; the factor and his con- 
stituent were worthy of each other ; and in a 
district distinguished for the skill, talents, and 
opulence of its farmers, no man was more re- 
spected then Mr. Gilbert Burns. His wife, 
who still survives, bore him a family of six sons 
and five daughters ; but of these, one son, and 
four daughters, predeceased their father. His 
means, though limited, were always managed 
with enviable frugality, as a proof of which we 
may state that every one of his boys received 
what is called a classical education. 



* This sketch is by Mr. Macdiarmid, of the Duni- 
fijes Courier^ iii which Journal it first appeared. 



No. LXXL 

THE POET'S SCRAP-BOOK. 

The Poet kept a Scrap-Book, which was 
what the title imports, really a thing of shreds 
and patches. In the following extracts, we 
have not been quite so sparing as Dr. Currie, 
whose extracts are above, nor so very profuse as 
Mr. Cromek, who, in his Reliques, has turned 
the book inside out. The prose articles are 
chiefly in the way of maxims or observations 
they have less of worldly selfishness, and more 
of the religious feeling, than those of Rochfou- 
caud : The poetical scraps are numerous — such 
of them as are worth preserving, and have not 
already appeared amongst the poems, will be 
found below. 

MV FATHER WAS A FARMER. 

Tt:ne—" The Weaver and his Shuttle, O." 

Mv Father wag a Farmer upon the Carrick border, O, 
And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O ; 
He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a 

farthing, O, 
For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth 

regarding, O. 

Then out into the world my course I did determine, O, 

Tho' to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was 
charming, O. 

My talents they were not the worst ; nor yet my edu- 
cation, O : 

Resolv'd was I, at least to try, to mend my situation, O. 

In many a w.iy, and vain essay, I courted fortune's fa- 
vour, O : 

Some cause unseen, still stept between, to frustrate 
each endeavour, O ; 

Sometimes by foes I was o'ei^pow'rd ; sometimes by 
friends forsaken, O ; 

And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst 
mistaken, O. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



303 



Then sore harass'd, and tir'd at last, with fortune's 

vain delusion, O ; 
I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to this 

conclusion, O ; 
The past was bad, and the future hid ; its good or ill 

untryed, O ; 
But the present hour was in my pow'r, and so I would 

enjoy it, O. 

No help, nor hope, nor view had I ; nor person to be- 
friend me, O ; 

So I must toil, and sweat and broil, and labour to sus- 
tain me, O, 

To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred 
me early, O ; 

For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for for- 
tune fairly, O. 

Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, thro* life I'm 
doomed to wander, O, 

Till down my weary bones I lay in everlasting slum- 
ber, O: 

No view nor care, but shun whate'er might breed me 
pain or sorrow O ; 

I live to day, as well's I may, regardless of to-mor- 
row, O. 

But cheerful still, I am as well, as a monarch in a pa- 

• jace, O, 
Tho' fortune's frown still hunts me down, with all her 

wonted malice, O ; 
I make indeed, my daily bread, but ne'er can make it 

farther, O ; 
But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard 

her, O. 

When sometimes by my labour I earn a little money, O, 
Some unforeseen misfortune comes generally upon 

me, O; 
Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or mygoodnatur'd 

folly, O ; 
But come what will, I've sworn it still, I'll ne'er be 

melancholy, O. 

All you who follow wealth and power with unremit- 
ting ardour, O, 

The more in this you look for bliss, you leave your 
view the farther, O ; 

Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore 
you, O, 

A cheerful honest hearted clown I will prefer before 
you, O. 

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF 
ROBERT RUISSEAUX.* 

Now Robin lies in his last lair. 

He'll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair, 

Cauld poverty, wi' hungry stare, 

Nae mair shall fear him ; 
Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care 

E'er mair come near him. 

To tell the truth, they seldom fash't him, 
Except the moment that they crush't him ; 
For sune as chance or fate had luisht 'ein, 

Tho' e'er sae short, 
Tlien wi' a rhyme or song he lasht 'em. 

And tliought it sport. — 

Tho' he was bred to kintra wark, 

And counted was baith wight and stark. 

Yet that was never Robin's mark 

To mak a man ; 
But tell him, he was a learn'd clark. 

Ye roos'd him then, f 

Melancholy. — There was a certain period of 
my life that my spirit was broke by repeated losses 
and disasters, which threatened, and indeed effect- 
ed, the utter ruin of my fortune. My body too 
was attacked by that most dreadful distemper, 
a hypochondria, or confirmed melancholy : In 
this wretched state, the recollection of which 



* Ruisseaux—stxeAms — a play on his own name. 
t Ye roos'd~ye prais'd. 



makes me yet shudder, I hung my harp on the 
willow trees, except in some lucid intervals, in 
one of which I composed the following!;. (Here 
follows the prayer in distress, p. 78. ) — March 
1784. 

Religious Sentiment. — What a creature is 
man ! A little alarm last night, and to-day, that 
I am mortal, has made such a revolution on my 
spirits ! There is no philosophy, no divinity, 
that comes half so much home to the mind. I 
have no idea of courage that braves Heaven : 
'Tis the wild ravings of an imaginary hero ia 
Bedlam. 

My favourite feature in Milton's Satan is his 
manly fortitude in supporting what cannot be 
remedied — in short, the wild, broken fragments 
of a noble, exalted mind in ruins. I meant no 
more by saying he was a favourite hero of 
mine. 

I hate the very idea of a controversial divini- 
ty ; as I firmly believe that every honest upright 
man, of whatever sect, will be accepted of the 
deity. I despise the superstition of a fanatic, 
but I love the religion of a man. 

Nothing astonishes me more, when a little 
sickness clogs the wheel of life, than the thought- 
less career we run in the hour of health. 
" None saith, where is God, my maker, that 
giveth songs in the night ; who teatheth us 
more knowledge than the beasts of the field, 
and more tmderstanding than the fowls of the 
air." 

My creed is pretty nearly expressed in the^ast 
clause of Jamie Deans grace, an honest weaver 
in Ayrshire ; " Lord grant that we may iead a 
gude life ! for a gude life maks a gude end, at 
least it helps weel !" 

A decent means of livelihood in the world, an 
approving God, a peaceful conscience, and one 
firm trusty friend ; can any body that has these, 
be said to be unhappy ? 

The dignified and dignifying consciousness of 
an honest man, and the well grounded trust in 
approving heaven, are two most substantial 
sources of happiness. 

Give me, my Maker, to remember thee ! 
Give me to feel •' another's woe ;" and con- 
tinue with me that dear-lov'd friend that feels 
with mine ! 

In proportion as we are wrung with grief, or 
distracted with anxiety, the ideas of a. compas- 
sionate Deity, an Almighty Protector, are doubly 
dear. 

I have been, this morning, taking a peep 
through, as Young finely says, " the dark post- 
ern of time long elapsed ;" 'twas a rueful pros- 
pect ! What a tissue of thoughtlessness, weak- 
ness, and folly ! My life reminded me of a ruin- 
ed temple. What strength, what proportion in 
some parts ! What unsightly gaps, what pros- 
trate ruins in others ! I kneeled down before 
the Father of Mercies, and said, " Father I 
have siuned against Heaven, and in thy sight, 
and am no more worthy to be called thy son.'* 
I rose, eased, and strengthened. 



304 



BURNS' WORKS. 



LETTERS, 1788. 



No. Lxxn. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Edinhvrgh, 2\st Jan. 17S8. 

After six weeks' continement, 1 am begin- 
ning to w:ilk across the room. They have been 
six horrible weeks ; anguish and low spirits 
made me unfit to read, write, or think. 

I ha^■e a hundred times wished that one 
could resign life as an officer resigns a commis- 
sion : for I would not take in any poor, igno- 
lant wretch, by seUing out. Lately I was a 
sixpenny private ; and, God knows, a miserable 
soldier enough ; now I march to the campaign, 
a starving cadet : a little more conspicuously 
wretched. 

I am ashamed of all this ; for though I do 
want bravery for the warfare of life, I could 
wish, like some other soldiers, to have as much 
fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal 
my cowardice. 

As soon as I can bear the journey, which 
will be, I suppose, about the middle of next 
Aveek, I leave Edinburgh, and soon after I shall 
pay my grateful duty at Dunlop-house. 



No. LXXIIL 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER 

TO THE SAME. 

Edinburgh, I2th Feb. 1788. 
Some things, in your late letters, hurt me : 
not that 7/ou say them, but that you mistake me. 
Religion, my honoured Madam, has not only 
been all my life my chief dependence, but my 
dearest enjoyment. I have indeed been the 
luckless victim of wayward follies ; but, alas i 
I have ever been '■ more fool than knave." 
A mathematician without religion, is a proba- 
ble character ; an irreligious poet, is a monster. 



No. LXXIV. 

TO A LADY. 

MADAM, Mossgiel, Ith March, 1788. 

The last paragraph in yours of the SOtli Fe- 
bruary affected me most, so I shall begin my 
answer where you ended your letter. That I 
am often a sinner with any little wit I have, I 
do confess : but 1 have taxed my recollection to 
no ))urpose, to find out when it was employed 
agamst you. I hate an ungenerous sarcasm, a 
great deal worse than I do the devil ; at least 
08 I^iuton describes him ; and though I may be 
rascaviy enough to be sometimes guilty of it my- 
self, 1 cannot endure it in others. You, my 
honoured friend, who cannot appoai- in any light, 



but you are sure of being respectable — you can 
afford to pass by an occasion to display your 
wit, because you may depend for fame on your 
sense ; or if you choose to be silent, you know 
you can rely on the gratitude of many and the 
esteem of all ; but God help us who are wits or 
witlings by profession, if we stand not for fame 
there, we sink unsupported ! 

I am highly flattered by the news you tell 
me of Coila.* I may say to the fair painter 
who does me so much honour, as Dr. Beattie 
says to Ross the poet, of his ]\Iuse Scotia, from 
which, by the bye, I took the idea of Coila : 
(*Tis a poem of Beattie's in the Scots dialect, 
which perhaps you have never seen. ) 

" Ye shak your head, but o' my fegs, 
Ye've set auld Scotia on her legs : 
Lang had she lien wi* buffe and flegs, 

Bombaz'd and dizzie. 
Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs, 

Waes me, poor hizzie." 



No. LXXV. 
TO MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN. 

Mauchline, 2^st March, 1788. 

Yesterday, my dear Sir, as I was riding 
through a track of melancholy joyless rauirs, 
between Galloway and Ayrshire, it being Sun- 
day, I turned my thoughts to psalms, and 
hymns, and spiritual songs ; and your favourite 
air. Captain O'Kean, coming at length in my 
head, I tried these words to it. You will see 
that the first part of the tune must be repeated.+ 

I am tolerably pleased with these verses, but 
as I have only a sketch of the tune, I leave it 
with you to try if they suit the measure of the 
music. 

I am so harassed with care and anxiety, about 
this farming project of mine, that my muse has 
degenerated into the veriest prose-wench that 
ever picked cinders, or followed a tinker. When 
I am fairly got into the routine of business, I 
shall trouble you with a longer epistle ; perhaps 
with some queries respecting farming ; at pre- 
sent, the world sits such a load on my mind, 
that it has eflviced almost every trace of the 

in me. 



My very best compliments and good wishes 
to Mrs. Cleghorn. 



No. LXXVL 
FROM MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN. 

Saughton Mills, 'Zlth April, 1788. 

MY dear brother FARMER, 

I WAS favoured with your very kind letter of 



* A lady was making a picture from the description 
of Coila in the Vision. 

f Hove the. bard gives the first stanza of the Cheva 
lier's Lament. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



305 



theSIst ult. and consider myself greatly obli2;ed 
to you, for your attention in sending nie the 
song to luy favourite air, Captain 0\Kcan. 
The words delight me much ; they tit the tune 
to a hair. I wish you would send me a verse 
or two more ; and if you have no objection, I 
would have it in the Jacobite style. Suppose 
it should be sung after the fatal iield of Cullo- 
den by the unfortunate Charles ; Teudiicci per- 
sonates the lovely Mary Stuart in the song 
Queen Mary's Lamentation. — Why may not 
I sing in the person of her great-great-great 
grandson ?* 

Any skill I have in country business you may 
truly command. Situation, soil, customs of 
countries may vary from each other, but Far- 
mer Attention is a good farmer in every place. 
I beg to hear from you soon. Mrs. Cleghorn 
joins me in best compliments. 

I am, in the most comprehensive sense of the 
word, your very sincere friend, 

ROBERT CLEGHORN. 



No. LXXVII. 
TO MR. JAMES SMITH, 

AVON PRINTFIELD, LINLITHGOW. 

Mauchline, April 2S, 1788. 

Beware of your Strasburgh, my good Sir ! 
Look on this as the opening of a correspondence 
like the opening of a twenty-four gun battery ! 

There is no understanding a man properly, 
without knowing something of his previous ideas 
(that is to say, if the man has any ideas ; for I 
know many who in the animal-muster, pass for 
men. that are the scanty masters of only one 
idea on any given subject, and by far the great- 
est ^art of your ac^quaintances and mine can 
barely boast of ideas, 1.25 — -1.5 — 1.75, or some 
such fractional matter), so to let you a little 
into the secrets of my pericraniuir), there is, you 
must know, a certain clean-limbed, handsome, 
bewitching young liussy of your acquaintance, 
to whom I have lately and privately given a ma- 
trimonial title to my corpus. 

*' Bode a robe and wear it," 

Says the wise old Scots adage ! I hate to pre- 
sage ill-luck ; and as my girl has been doubly 
kinder to me than even the best of women 
usually are to their partners of our sex, in simi- 
lar circumstances, I reckon on twelve times a 
brace of children against I celebrate my twelfth 
wedding day : these twenty-four will give me 
twenty-four gossippings, twenty-four christen- 
ings, (I mean one equal to two), and I hope by 
the blessing of the God of my fathers, to make 



them twenty-four dutiful children to their pa- 
rents, twenty-four useful members of society, 
and twenty-four approven servants of their God ! 

" Light's heartsome," quo' the 

wife when she was stealing sheep. You see 
what a lamp I have hung up to lighten your 
paths, when you are idle enough to explore the 
combinations and relations of my ideas. 'Tis 
now as plain as a pike-staff, why a twtnty-four 
gun battery was a metaphor 1 could readily 
employ. 

Now for business 1 intend to present IMrs. 

Burns with a printed shawl, an article of which 
I dare say you have variety : 'tis my first pre- 
sent to her since I have irrevocably called her 
mine, and I have a kind of whimsical wish to 
get her the said first present from an old and 
much valued friend of hers and mine, a trusty 
Trojan, on whose friendship I count myself 
possessed of a life-rent lease. 



Look on this letter as a " beginning of sor- 
rows ;" I'll write you till your eyes ache with 
reading nonsense, 

Mrs. Burns ('tis only her private desigoa- 
tion), begs her best compliments to you. 



» Our Poet took this advice. See poetry f(»r llie 
whole of that beautiful song— the Chcviilier's Lament, 



No. LXXVIIL 



TO MRS. DUNLOP. 



MADAM, Mauchline, 2^ih April, 1788. 

Your powers of reprehension must be great 
indeed, as I assure you they made my heart 
ache with jMjnitential pangs, even though I was 
really not guilty. As I commence farmer at 
Whitsunday, you will easily guess I must be 
pretty busy ; but that is not all. As I got the 
offer of the excise business without solicitation ; 
and as it costs me only six months' attendance 
for instructions, to entitle me to a commission ; 
which commission lies by me, and at any future 
period, on my simple petition, can be resumed ; 
I thought five and thirty pounds a-year was no 
bad dernier resort for a poor poet, if fortune in 
her jade tricks should kick him down from the 
little eminence to which she has lately helped 
him up. 

For this reason, I am at present attending 
these instructions, to have them completed be- 
fore Whitsunday. Still, JMadam, I prepared 
with the sincerest pleasure to meet you at the 
Mount, and came to my brother's on Saturday 
night, to set out on Sunday ; but for some 
nights preceding I had slept in an apartment, 
where the force of the winds and rain was only 
mitigated by being sifted through numberless 
apertures in the windows, walls, &c. In con- 
sequence I was on Sunday, Monday, and part 
of Tuesday unable to stir out of bed, with all 
the miserable effects of a violent cold. 
59 



306 



BURNS' WORKS. 



You see, Madam, the trutu of the French 
maxim, JLe vrai n' est pas tovjours le vrai-sem- 
Uahle ; your last was so full of expostulation, 
and was something so like the language of an 
offended friend, that I hegan to tremble for a 
correspondence, which I had with grateful plea- 
sure set down as one of the greatest enjoyments 
of my future life. 



Your books have delighted me ; Virgil, Dry- 
den, and Tasso, were all equal strangers to me ; 
but of this more at large in my next. 



No. LXXIX. 
FROM THE REV. JOHN SKINNER. 



You will oblige me by presenting my respects 
to your host, Mr. Cruikshank, who has given 
such high approbation to my poor Latinity ; 
you may let him know, that as I have likewise 
been a dabbler in Latin poetry, I have two 
things that I would, if he desires it, submit not 
to his judgment, but to his amusement : the 
one, a translation of Christ's Kirk o' the Green, 
printed at Aberdeen some years ago ; the other, 
Satrachomyomachia Homeri Latinis versihus 
cum additamentis, given in lately to Chalmers, 
to print if he pleases. Mr. C. will know Se~ 
ria non semper delectant, non joca semper. 
Semper delectant seria mixta jocis. 

I have just room to repeat compliments and 
good wishes from. 

Sir, your humble servant, 

JOHN SKINNER. 



DEAR SIR, Linshart, 28<A April, 1788. 

I RECEIVED your last, with the curious pre- 
sent you have favoured me with, and would 
have made proper acknowledgments before now, 
but that I have been necessarily engaged in 
matters of a different complexion. And now 
that I have got a little respite, I make use of it 
to thank you for this valuable instance of your 
good will, and to assure you that, with the sin- 
cere heart of a true Scotsman, I highly esteem 
both the gift and the giver : as a small testi- 
mony of which I have herewith sent you for 
your amusement (and in a form which I hope 
you will excuse for saving postage) the two 
songs I wrote about to you already. Charming 
Nancy is the real production of genius in a 
ploughman of twenty years of age at the time 
of its appearing, with no more education than 
what he picked up at an old farmer-grandfa- 
ther's fireside, though now, by the strength of 
natural parts, he is clerk to a thriving bleach- 
field in the neighbourhood. And I doubt not 
but you will find in it a simplicity and delicacy, 
with some turns of humour, that will please 
one of your taste ; at least it pleased me when 
1 first saw it, if that can be any recommenda- 
tion to it. The other is entirely descriptive of 
my own sentiments, and you may make use of 
one or both as you shall see good.* 



No. LXXX. 
TO PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART. 

SIR, Mauchline, 3d May, 1787. 

I ENCLOSE you one or two more of my baga- 
telles. If the fervent wishes of honest grati- 
tude; have any influence with that great, un- 
known Being, who frames the chain of causes 
and events ; prosperity and happiness will at- 
tend your visit to the Continent, and return you 
safe to your native shore. 

Wherevei- 1 am, allow me. Sir, to claim it as 
my privilege, to acquaint you with my progress 
in my trade of rhymes ; as I am sure I could 
say it with truth, that, next to my little fame, 
and the having it in my power to make life 



* CHARMING NANCY. 

A SONG, BY A BUCHAN PLOUGHMAN. 

Tune — *' Humours of Glen." 

Some sing of sweet Mally, some sing of fair Nelly, 

And some call sweet Susie the cause of their pain : 
Some love to be jolly, some love melancholy. 

And some love to sing of the Humours of Glen. 
But my only fancy, is my pretty Nancy, 

In venting my passion, I'll strive to be plain, 
I'll ask no more treasure, I'll seek no more pleasure. 

But thee, my dear Nancy, gin thou wert my ain. 

Her beauty delights me, her kindness invites me. 
Her pleasant behaviour is free from all stain ; 



Therefore, my sweet jewel, O do not prove cruel. 
Consent, my dear Nancy, and come be my ain : 

Her carriage is comely, her language is homely. 
Her dress is quite decent when ta'en in the main : 

She's blooming in feature, she's handsome in stature. 
My charming, dear Nancy, O wert thou my ain ! , 

Like Phoebus adorning the fair ruddy morning. 

Her bright eyes are sparkling, her brows are serene. 
Her yellow locks shining, in beauty combining, 

My charming, sweet Nancy, wilt thou be my ain ? 
The whole of her face is with maidenly graces 

Array'd like the gowans, that grow in yon glen. 
She's well shaped and slender, true hearted and tender. 

My charming, sweet Nancy, O wert thou my ain '. 

I'll seek through the nation for some habitation. 

To shelter my dear from the cold, snow, and rain. 
With songs to my deary, I'll keep her aye cheery. 

My charming, sweet Nancy, gin thou wert my ain, 
I'll work at my calling, to furnish thy dwelling. 

With ev'ry thing needful thy life to sustain ; 
Thou Shalt not sit single, but by a clear ingle, 

I'll marrow thee, Nancy, when thou art my ain. 

I'll make true affection the constant direction 

Of loving my Nancy while life doth remain : 
Tho' youth will be wasting, true love shall be lasting. 

My charming, sweet Nancy, gin thou wert my airu 
But what it my Nancy should alter her fancy. 

To favour another be forward and fain, 
I will not compel her, but plainly I'll tell her. 

Begone thou false Nancy, thou'se ne'er be my ain. ' 

The Old Man's Song, (see p. 135). 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



307 



more comfortable to tliose whom nature has 
made dear to me, I shall ever regard your coun- 
tenance, your patronage, your friendly good of- 
fices, as the most valued consequence of ray late 
success in life. 



No. LXXXI. 

EXTRACT OP A rETTER 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

MADAM, Mauchline, Uh May, 1788. 

Dryden's Virgil has delighted me. I do 
not know whether the critics will agree with 
me, but the Georgics are to me by far the best 
of Virgil. It is indeed a species of writing en- 
tirely new to me; and has filled my head with 
a thousand fancies of emidation ; but, alas I 
when I read the Georgics, and then survey my 
own powers, 'tis like the idea of a Shetland 
poney, drawn up by the side of a thorough-bred 
hunter, to start for the plate. I own I am dis- 
appointed in the J^neid. Faultless correct- 
uess may please, and does highly please the let- 
tered critic ; but to that awful character I have 
not the most distant pretensions. I do not 
know whether I do not hazard my pretensions 
to be a critic of any kind, when I say that I 
think Virgil, in many instances, a servile copier 
of Homer. K I had the Odyssey by me, I 
could parallel many passages where Virgil has 
evidently copied, but by no means improved 
Homer. Nor can I think there is any thing of 
this owing to the translators ; for, from every 
thing I have seen of Dryden, 1^ think him, in 
genius and fluency of language, Pope's master. 
I have not perused Tasso enough to form an 
opinion : in some future letter, you shall have 
ray ideas of him ; though I am conscious my 
criticisms must be very inaccurate and imper- 
fect, as there I have ever felt and lamented my 
want of learning most. 



No. LXXXII. 
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Mauchline, May 26, 1788. 

MY DEAR friend, 

I AM two kind letters in your debt, but I 
have been from home, and horridly busy buying 
and preparing for my farming business ; over 
and above the plague of my Excise instructions, 
which this week will finish. 

As I flatter my wishes that I foresee many 
future years' correspondence between us, 'tis 
foolish to talk of excusing dull epistles : a dull 
letter may be a very kind one. I have the plea- 
sure to tell you that I have been extremely for- 



tunate in all my buylngg and bargainings hither- 
to ; INIrs. Burns not excepted ; which title I 
now avow to the world. I am truly pleased 
with this last afluir : it has indeed added to my 
anxieties for futurity, but it has given a stability 
to my mind and resolutions, unknown before ; 
and the poor girl has the most sacred enthusiasm 
of attachment to me, and has not a wish but to 
gratify my every idea of her deportment. 
I am interrupted. 

Farewell ! my dear Sir. 



No. LXXXIII. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

MADAM, '^Ith May, 1788. 

I HAVE been torturing my philosophy to no 
purpose, to account for that kind partiality of 

yours, which, unlike 

, has followed me in my 

return to the shade of life, with assiduous be- 
nevolence. Often did 1 regiet in the fleeting 
hours of my late will-o'-wisp appearance, that 
" here 1 had no continuing city ;" and but for 
the consolation of a few solid guineas, could 
almost lament the time that a momentary ac- 
quaintance with wealth and splendour put me 
so much out of conceit with the sworn com- 
panions of my road through life, insignificance, 
and poverty. 



There are few circumstances relating to the 
unequal distribution of the good things of this 
life, that give me more vexation (I mean iu 
what I see around me) than the importance the 
opulent bestow on their trifling family affairs, 
compared with the very same things on the con- 
tracted scale of a cottage. Last afternoon I had 
the honour to spend an hour or two at a good 
woman's fireside, where the planks that com- 
posed the floor were decorated with a splendid 
carpet, and the gay table sparkled with silver 
and china. 'Tis now about term-day, and there 
has been a revolution among those creatures, 
who, though in appearance partakers, and. 
equally noble partakers of the same nature witiv 
madame ; are from time to time, their nerves, 
their sinews, their health, strength, wisdom, 
experience, genius, time, nay, a good part of 
their very thoughts, sold for months and years^ 



not only to the necessities, the conveniences, but 
the caprices of the important few. * We talked 
of the insignificant creatures ; nay, notwith- 
standing their general stupidity and rascality, 
did some of the poor devils the honour to com- 



* Servants in Scotland are hired from terra to jerm, 
e. from Whitsunday to Martinmas, v^c. 



308 



BURNS' WORKS. 



mend them. But light be the turf upon liis 
breast, who taught " Reverence thyself." We 
looked down on the upolished wretches, their 
impertinent wives and clouterly brats, as the 
lordly bull does on the little dirty ant-hill, 
whose puny inhabitants he crushes in the care- 
lessness of his ramble, or tosses in air in the 
wantonness of his pride. 



No. LXXXIV. 
TO THE SAME. 

(at MR. DUNLOP'S, HADDINGTON.) 

Ellisland, Vith June, 1788. 
" Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see. 
My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee ; 
Still to my fi-iend it turns with ceaseless pain, 
And drags at each remove a lengthen'd chain." 

GOLDSMITH. 

This is the second day, my honoured friend, 
that I have been on my farm. A solitary in- 
mate of an old, smoky spence ; far from every 
object I love, or by whom I am loved ; nor any 
acquaintance older than yesterday, except Je7i- 
mj Geddes, the old mare I ride on ; while un- 
couth cares, and novel plans, hourly insult my 
awkward ignorance and bashful inexperience. 
There is a foggy atmosphere native to my soul 
in the hour of care, consequently the dreary ob- 
jects seem larger than the life. Extreme sensi- 
bdity, irritated and prejudiced on the gloomy 
side by a series of misfortunes and disappoint- 
ments, at that period of my existence when the 
soul is laying in her cargo of ideas for the voyage 
of life, is, I believe, the principal cause of this 
unhappy frame of mind. 

" The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer ? 
Or what need he regard his single woes ?" &c. 



a good wife, though she should never have read 
a page, but the Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testament, nor have danced in a brighter as- 
sembly than a penny pay-wedding. 



Your surmise, Madam, is just : 
a husband. 



am indeed 



1 found a once much-loved and still much- 
loved female, literally and truly cast out to the 
mercy of the naked elements, but as I enabled 
her to purchase a shelter ; and there is no 
sporting with a fellow-creature's happiness or 
misery. 

The most placid good-nature and sweetness 
of disposition : a warm heart, gratefully devoted 
with all its powers to love me ; vigorous health 
and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best 
advantage, by a more than common handsome 
figure ; these, I think, in a woman, may make 



No. LXXXV. 
TO MR. P. HILL. 

MY DEAR HILI-, 

I SHALL say nothing at all to your mad pre- 
sent — you have so long and often been of im- 
portant service to me, and I suppose you mean 
to go on conferring obligations until I shall not 
be able to lift up my face before you. In the 
meantime, as Sir Roger de Coverley, because ifc 
happened to be a cold day in which he made 
his will, ordered his servants great coats for 
mourning, so, because I have been this week 
plagued with an indigestion, I have sent you by 
the carrier a fine old ewe-milk cheese. 

Indigestion is the devil : nay, 'tis the devil 
and all. It besets a man in every one of his 
senses. I lose my appetite at the sight of suc- 
cessful knavery ; and sicken to loathing at the 
noise and nonsense of self-important folly. 
When the hollow-hearted wretch takes me by 
the hand, the feeling spoils my dinner ; the 
proud man's wine so offends my palate, that it 
chokes me in the gullet ; and the pulvilis'd, 
feathered, pert coxcomb, is so disgustful in my 
nostril that my stomach turns. 

If ever you have any of these disagreeable 
sensations, let me prescribe for you patience and 
a bit of my cheese. I know that you are no 
niggard of your good things among your friends, 
and some of them are in much need of a slice. 
There in my eye is oui friend Smellie, a man po- 
sitively of the first abilities and greatest strength 
of mind, as well as one of the best hearts and 
keenest wits that I have ever met with : when 
you see him, as, alas ! he too is smarting at the 
pinch of distressful circumstances, aggravated 
by the sneer of contumelious greatness — a bit of 
my cheese alone will not cure him, but if you 
add a tankard of brown stout, and superadd a 
magnum of right Oporto, you will see his sor- 
rows vanish like the morning mist before the 
summer sun. 

C h, the earliest friend, except my only 

brother, that I have on earth, and one of the 
worthiest fellows that ever any man called by 
the name of friend, if a luncheon of my cheese 
would help to rid him of some of his supera- 
bundant modesty, you would do well to give it 
him. 

David * with his Courant comes, too, across 
my recollection, and I beg you will help him 



* Printer of the Edinburgh Evening Courant. 



^^'-.£m^^'r/f£ 3}t'fy J/-a/^,/// 



LooJ^ l^^y^ruj/u^^ /uTMajr^^ Xyay/^ 






CORRESPONDENCE. 



309 



largely from the said ewc-milk cheese, to ena- 
ble him to digest those bedaubing para- 
graphs with which he is eternally larding the 
lean characters of certain great men in a certain 
great town. I grant you the periods are very 
well turned : so, a fresh egg is a very good 
thing ; but when thrown at a man in a pillory 
it does not at all improve his figure, not to men- 
tion the irreparable loss of the egg. 

My facetious friend, D r, I would wish 

also to be a partaker ; not to digest his spleen, 
for that he laughs off, but to digest his last 
night's wine at the last field-day of the Croch- 
allan corps.* 

Among our common friends I must not for- 
get one of the dearest of them, Cunningham. 
The brutality, insolence, and selfishness of a 
world unworthy of having such a fellow as he 
is in it, I know sticks in his stomach, and if 
you can help him to any thing that will make 
him a little easier on that score, it will be very 
obliging. 

As to honest J S e, he is such a 

contented happy man that 1 know not what can 
annoy him, except perhaps he may not have got 
the better of a parcel of modest anecdotes which 
a certain poet gave him one night at supper, 
the last time the said poet was in town. 

Though I have mentioned so many men of 
law, I shall have nothing to do with them pro- 
fessedly — the Faculty are beyond my prescrip- 
tion. As to their clients, that is another thing ; 
God knows they have much to digest ! 

The clergy I pass by ; their profundity of 
erudition, and their liberality of sentiment ; 
their total want of pride, and their detestation 
of hypocrisy, are so proverbially notorious as to 
place them far, far above either my praise or 
censure. 

I was going to mention a man of worth, 
whom I have the honour to call friend, the 
Laird of Craigdarroch ; but I have spoken to 
the landlord of the King's arms inn here, to 
have, at the next county-meeting, a large ewe- 
milk cheese on the table, for the benefit of the 
J)umfriesshire whigs, to enable them to digest 
the Duke of Queensberry's late i)oiitical con- 
duct. 

I have just this moment an opportunity of a 
private hand to Edinburgh, as perha[)s you would 
not digest double postage- 



No. LXXXVI. 

TO MR. ROBERT ATNSLIE. 

EUisland, June U, 1788. 
This is now the third day, my dearest Sir, 
that 1 have sojourned in these regions ; and du- 
ring these three days you have occupied more 
of ray thoughts than in three weeks preceding : 



A club of choice spirits 



In Ayrshire I liave several variations of friend- 
ship's compass, here it points invariably to tlie 
pole. — My farm gives me a good many uncouth 
cares and anxieties, but I hate the language of 
complaint. Job, or some one of his friends, 
says well — " Why should a living man cora- 
jjlain ?" 

I have lately been much mortified with con- 
templating an unlucky imperfection in the very 
framing and construction of my soul ; namely, 
a blundering inaccuracy of her olfactory organs 
in hitting the scent of craft or design in my 
fellow creatures. I do not mean any compli- 
ment to my ingenuousness, or to hint that the 
defect is in consequence of the unsuspicious sim- 
plicity of conscious truth and honour : I take it 
to be, in some way or other, an imperfection in 
the mental sight ; or, metaphor apart, some 
modification of dulness. In two or three small 
instances lately, I have been most shamefully 
out. 

I have all along, hitherto, in the warfare of 
life, been bred to arms among the light-horse — 
the piquet-guards of fancy ; a kind of hussars 
and highlanders of the brain ; but I am firmly 
resolved to sell out of these giddy battalions, who 
have no ideas of a battle but fighting the foe, or 
of a siege but storming the town. Cost what it 
will, I am determined to buy in among the grave 
squadrons of heavy-armed thought, or the artil- 
lery corps of plodding contrivance. 

What books are you reading, or what is the 
subject of your thoughts, besides the great stu- 
di(!s of your profession ? You said something 
about religion in your last. I don't exactly re- 
member what it was, as the letter is in Ayr- 
shire ; but I thought it not only prettily said, 
but nobly thought. You will make a noble fel- 
low if once you were married. I make no re- 
servation of your being ivell-mavried : You have 
so much sense, and knowledge of human nature, 
that though you may not realize perhaps the 
ideas of romance, yet you will never be ill-mar- 
ried. 

Were it not for the terrors of my ticklish si- 
tuation respecting provision for a family of chil- 
dren, I am decidedly of opinion that the step I 
have taken is vastly for my happiness. As it is, 
I look to the excise scheme as a certainty of 
maintenance ; a maintenance, luxury to what 
either IMrs. Burns or I were born to. 

Adieu. 



No. LXXXVII. 

TO MR. MORISON,* Wright, 

Mauculine. 

EUisland, June 22, 1 788. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

Necessity obliges me to go into my neiv 



* This letter refers to chairs, and other articles of 
furuiture which the Poet ha<l ordered. 



310 



BURNS' WORKS. 



house, even before it be plastered. I will inha- 
bit the one end until the ot\xer is finished. About 
three weeks more, I think, will at farthest, be 
my time, beyond which I cannot stay in this 
present house. If ever you wished to deserve 
the blessing of him that was ready to perish ; if 
ever you were in a situation that a little kind 
ness would have rescued you from many evils 
if ever you hope to find rest in future states of 
untried being ; — get these matters of mine rea- 
dy. My servant will be out in the beginning of 
next week for the clock. My compliments to 
Mrs. IVforison. 

I am, after all my tribulation, 

Dear Sir, yours. 



No. LXXXVIII. 
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Ellisland, June 30, 1788. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

I JUST now received your brief epistle ; and 
to take vengeance on your laziness, I have, you 
see, taken a long sheet of writing-paper, and 
have begun at the top of the page, intending to 
scribble on to the very last corner. 

I am vext at that affair of the . . ., but 
dare not enlarge on the subject until you send 
me your direction, as I suppose that will be al- 
tered on your late master and friend's death. I 
am concerned for the old fellow's exit, only as I 
fear it may be to your disadvantage in any re- 
spect — for an old man's dying, except he have 
been a very benevolent character, or in some 
particular situation of life, that the welfare of 
the poor or the helpless depended on him, I 
think it an event of the most trifling moment to 
the world. Man is naturally a kind benevolent 
animal, but he is dropt into such a needy situa- 
tion here in this vexatious world, and has such 
a whoreson, hungry, growling, multiplying pack 
of necessities, appetites, passions, and desires 
about him, ready to devour him for want of 
other food ; that in fact he must lay aside his 
cares for others, that he may look properly to 
himself. You have been imposed upon in pay- 
ing Mr. M for the profile of a Mr. H. I 

did not mention it in my letter to you, nor did 

I ever give Mr. M any such order. I have 

no objection to lose the money, but I will not 
have any such profile in my possession. j 

I desired the carrier to pay you, but as I 
mentioned only 15s. to him, I will rather in- 
close you a guinea-note. I have it not indeed 
to spare here, as I am only a sojourner in a 
strange land in this place ; but in a day or two 
I return to Mauchline, and there I have the 
bank-notes through the house, like salt permits. 

There is a great degree of folly in talking un- 
necessarily of one's private affairs. I have just 
now been interrupted by one of roy new neigh- 



bours, who has made himself absolutely con- 
temptible in my eyes, by his silly, garrulous 
pruriency. I know it has been a fault of my 
own too ; but from this moment I abjure it as I 
would the service of hell ! Your poets, spend- 
thrifts, and other fools of that kidney, pretend, 
forsooth, to crack their jokes on prudence, but 
'tis a squalid vagabond glorying in his rags. 
Still, imprudence respecting money matters, is 
much more pardonable than imprudence respect- 
ing character. I have no objection to prefer 
prodigality to avarice, in some few instances ; 
but I appeal to your observation, if you have 
not met, and often met, with the same little dis- 
ingenuousness, the same hollow-hearted insin- 
cerity, and disintegritive depravity of principle, 
in the hackney'd victims of profusion, as in the 
unfeeling children of parsimony. I have every 
possible reverence for the much-talked-of world 
beyond the grave, and I wish that which piety 
believes and virtue deserves, may be all matter 
of fact — But in things belonging to and termi- 
nating in this present scene of existence, man 
has serious and interesting business on hand. 
Whe?lier a man shall shake hands with wel- 
come in the distinguished elevation of respect, 
or shrink from contempt in the abject corner of 
insignificance ; whether he shall wanton under 
the tropic of plenty, at least enjoy himself in the 
comfortable latitudes of easy convenience, or 
starve in the arctic circle of dreary poverty ; 
whether he shall rise in the manly consciousness 
of a self-approving mind, or sink beneath a gall- 
ing load of regret and remorse — these are alter- 
natives of the last moment. 

You see how I preach. You used occasion- 
ally to sermonize too ; I wish you would in 
charity, favour me with a sheet fiill in your own 
way. I admire the close of a letter Lord Bo- 
lingbroke writes to Dean Swift, " Adieu, dear 
Swift ! with all thy faults I love thee entirely : 
make an efiurt to love me with all mine !'* 
Humble servant, and all that trumpery, is now 
such a prostituted business, that honest friend- 
ship, in her sincere way, must have recourse to 
her primitive, simple, — farewell ! 



No. LXXXIX. 

TO MR. GEORGE LOCKHART, 
Merchant, Glasgow. 

MY DEAR SIR, MauchUne, July 18, 1788. 

I AM just going for Nithsdale, else I would 
certainly have transcribed some of my rhyming 
things for you. The JNIiss Bailies I have seen 
in Edinburgh. *' Fair and lovely are thy works. 
Lord God Almighty ! Who would not praise 
Thee for these Thy gifts in Thy goodness to the 
sons of men !" It needed not your fine taste to 
admire them. I declare, one day I had the 
honour of dining at IMr. Bailie's, I was almost 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



311 



ia the predicament of the children of Israel, 
when they could not look on Moses's face for 
the glory that shone in it when he descended 
fi-om Mount Sinai. 

I did once write a poetic address from the 
falls of Bruar to his Grace of Athole, when I 
was in the Highlands. When you return to 
Scotland let me know, and I will send such of 
my pieces as please myself best. 

I return to Mauchline in about ten days. 

My compliments to Mr. Purden. I am in 
truth, but at present in haste, 

• Yours sincerely. 



No. XC. 



TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Mauchline, 2d Aug. 17S8. 

HONOURED MADAM, 

Your kind letter welcomed me yesternight, 
to Ayrshire. I am indeed seriously angry with 
you at the quantum of your luckpenny ; but 
vexed and hurt as I was, I could not help laugh- 
ing very heartily at the noble lord's apology for 
the missed napkin. 

I would write you from Nithsdale, and give 
you my direction there, but I have scarce an 
opportunity of calling at a post-office once in 
a fortnight. I am six miles from Dumfries, 
am scarcely ever in it myself, and, as yet, have 
little acquaintance in the neighbourhood. Be- 
sides, I am now very busy on my farm, build- 
ing a dwelling-house ; as at present I am al- 
most an evangelical man in Nithsdale, for I have 
scarce " where to lay my head." 

There are some passages in your last that 
brought tears in my eyes. " The heart know- 
eth its own sorrows, and a stranger intermed- 
dleth not therewith." The repository of these 
" sorrows of the heart," is a kind of sanctum 
sanctorum ; and 'tis only a chosen friend, and 
that too at particular, sacred times, who dares 
enter into them. 

*• Heaven oft tears the bosom chords 
That nature finest strung." 

You will excuse this quotation for the sake 
of the author. Instead of entering on this sub- 
ject farther, I shall transcribe you a few lines I 
wrote in a hermitage belonging to a gentleman 
in my Nithsdale neighbourhood. They are al- 
most the only favours the muse has conferred 
on me in that country. 

( The lines on Friar Carse hermitage, be- 
ginging 

Thou whom chance may hither lead. ) 

Since I am in the way of transcribing, the 



following were the production of yesterday as 
I jogged through the wild hills of New Cum- 
nock. I intended inserting them, or something 
like them, In an epistle I am going to write to 
the gentleman on whose friendship my excise 
hopes depend, Mr. Graham of Fintry ; one of 
the worthiest and most accomplished gentle- 
men, not only of this country, but I will dare 
to say it, of this age. The following are just 
the first crude thoughts " unhousel'd, unau- 
ointed, unanell'd." 



Pity the tuneful muses' helpless train ; 

Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main : 

The world were blest, did bless on them de- 
pend ; 

Ah, that " the friendly e'er should want a 
friend!" 

The little fate bestows they share as soon ; 

Unlike sage, proverb'd, wisdom's hard-wrung 
boon. 

Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son 

Who life and wisdom at one race begun ; 

Who feel by reason and who give by rule ; 

Instinct's a brute, and sentiment a fool ! 

Who make poor will do wait upon / should ; 

We own they're prudent, but who feels they're 
good ? 

Ye wise one's, hence ! ye hurt the social eye ; ] 
God's image rudely etch'd on base alloy I 
But come 

Here the muse left me. I am astonished at 
what you tell me of Anthony's writing me. 1 
never received it. Poor fellow ! you vex me 
much by telling me that he is unfortunate. I 
shall be in Ayrshire ten days from this date. 
I have just room for an old Roman farewell ! 



No. XCI. 



TO THE SAME. 

Mauchline, lOth August, 1788. 

MY MUCH HONOURED FRIEND, 

Yours of the 2-ith June is before me. I 
found it, as well as another valued friend — my 
wife, waiting to welcome me to Ayrshire : I 
met both with the sincerest pleasure. 

When I write you, INIadam, I do not sit down 
to answer every paragraph of yours, by echoing 
every sentiment, like the faithful commons of 
Great Britain in parliament assembled, answer- 
ing a speech from the best of kings ! I express 
myself in the fulness of my heart, and may per- 
haps be guilty of neglecting some of your kind 
inquiries ; but not from your very odd reason 
that I do not read your letters. All your epistles 
for several months have cost rac nothing, ex- 



312 



BURNS' WORKS. 



cept a swelling throb of gratitude, or a deep- 
felt sentiment of veneration. 

Mrs. Burns, Madam, is the identical woman 



When she first found herself " as women wish 
to be who love their lords ;" as I loved her 
nearly to distraction, we took steps for a pri- 
vate marriage. Her parents got the hint ; and 
not only forbade me her company and their 
house, but on my rumoured West Indian voy- 
age, got a warrant to put me in jail, till I should 
find security in my about-to-be paternal rela- 
tion. You know my lucky reverse of fortune. 
On my eclatant return to Mauchliue, I was 
made very welcome to visit my girl. The usual 
consequences began to betray her ; and as I was 
at that time laid up a cripple in Edinburgh, 
she was turned, literally turned out of doors, 
and I wrote to a friend to shelter her, till my 
return, when our marriage was declared. Her 
happiness or misery was in my hands, and who 
could trifle with such a deposit ? 



I can easily fancy a more agreeable compa- 
nion for my journey of life, but, upon my ho- 
nour, I have never seen the individual instance. 



Circumstanced as I am, I could never have 
got a female partner for life, who could have 
entered into my favourite studies, relished my 
favourite authors, &c. without probably entail- 
ing on me, at the same time, expensive living, 
fantastic caprice, perhaps apish affectation, with 
all the other blessed boarding-school acquire- 
ments, which (pardonnez moi, Madame) are 
sometimes to be found among females of the up- 
per ranks, but almost universally pervade the 
misses of the would-be-gentry. 



I like your way in your church-yaid lucu- 
brations. Thoughts that are the spontaneous 
result of accidental situations, either respecting 
health, place, or company, have often a strength, 
and always an originality, that would in vain 
be looked for in fancied circumstances and stu- 
died paragraphs. For me, I have often thought 
of keeping a letter, iii progression, by me, to 
send you when the sheet was written out. Now 
I talk of sheets, I must tell you, my reason for 
writing to you on paper of this kind, is my pru- 
riency of writing to you at large. A page of 
post is on such a dissocial, narrow-minded scale, 
that I cannot abide it ; and double letters, at 
least in my miscellaneous reverie manner, are a 
monstroua tax in a close correspoadeuce. 



No. XCII. 
TO THE SAME. 

Ellisland, \Qth August, 1788. 
I AM In a fine disposition, my honoured friend, 
so send you an elegiac epistle ; and want only 
genius to make it quite Shenstonian. 

" Why droops my heart with fancied woes for- 
lorn ? 
Why sinks my soul beneath each wintry sky?" 



My increasing cares in this, as yet, strange 
country — gloomy conjectures in the dark vista 
of futurity — consciousness of my own inability 
for the struggle of the world — my broadened 
mark to misfortune in a wife and children ; — 
I could indulge these reflections, till my humour 
should ferment into the most acrid chagrin, that 
would corrode the very thread of life. 

To counterwork these baneful feelings, I have 
sat down to write to you ; as I declare upon 
my soul I always find that the most sovereign 
balm for my wounded spirit. 

I was yesterday at Mr. 's to dinner, for 

the first time. My reception was quite to my 
mind ; from the lady of the house quite flatter- 
ing. She sometimes hits on a couplet or two, 
impromptu. She repeated one or two to the 
admiration of all present. My suffrage as a 
professional man was expected : I for once went 
agonizing over the belly of my conscience. Par- 
don me, ye, my adored household gods. Inde- 
pendence of Spirit, and Integrity of Soul ! In 
the course of conversation, Johnsons Musical 
Museum, a collection of Scottish songs with the 
music, was talked of. We got a song on the 
harpsichord, beginning, 

*' Raving winds around her blowing." 

The air was much admired : the lady of the 
house asked me whose were the words — " Mine, 
Madam — they are indeed my very best verses : " 
she took not the smallest notice of them ! The 
old Scottish proverb says, well, " king's cafi" is 
better than Ither folks' corn." I was going to 
make a New Testament quotation about " cast- 
ing pearls ;" but that would be too virulent, 
for the lady is actually a woman of sense and 
taste. 



After all that has been said on the other side 
of the question, man is by no means a happy 
creature. I do not speak of the selected few, 
favoured by partial heaven, whose souls are tun- 
ed to gladness amid riches and honours, and pru- 
dence and wisdom — I speak of the neglected 
many, whose nerves, whose sinews, whose days 
are sold to the minions of fortune. 

If I thought you had never seen it, I would 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



313 



transcribe for you a stanza of an old Scottish 
ballad, called The Lift and Age of Man, be- 
ginning thus, 

" 'Twas in the sixteenth hunder year 

Of God and fifty three, 
Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear, 

As writings testifie." 

I had an old grand-uncle, with whom my 
mother lived a while in her girlish years ; the 
good old man, for such he was, was long blind 
ere he died, during which time, his highest eu- 
joyment was to sit down and cry, while my mo- 
ther would sing the simple old song of Tlie life 
and Age of Man. 

It is this way of thinking — it is those melan- 
choly truths, that make religion so precious to 
the poor, miserable children of men — If it is a 
mere phantom, existing only in the heated ima- 
gination of enthusiasm, 

" What truth on earth so precious as the lie !" 

My idle reasonings sometimes make me a lit- 
tle sceptical, but the necessities of my heart al- 
ways give the cold philosophizings the lie. 
Who looks for the heart weaned from earth ; 
the soul affianced to her God ; the correspon- 
dence fixed with heaven ; the pious supplica- 
tion and devout thanksgiving, constant as the 
vicissitudes of even and morn ; who thinks to 
meet with these in the court, the palace, in the 
glare of public life ? No : to find them in their 
precious importance and divine efficacy, we must 
search among the obscure recesses of disappoint- 
ment, affliction, j)overty, and distress. 

I am sure, dear Madam, you are now more 
than pleased with the length of my letters. I 
return to Ayrshire, middle of next week : and 
it quickens my pace to think that there will be 
a letter from you waiting me there. I must be 
here again very soon for my harvest. 



No. XCIII. 
TO R. GRAHAM, OF FINTRY, Esq. 

SIR, 

When I had the honour of being introduced 
to you at Athole-house, I did not think so soon 
of asking a favour of you. When Lear, in 
Shakspeare, asks old Kent, why he wished to 
be in his service, he answers, '< Because you 
have that in your face which I could like to 
call master." For some such reason. Sir, do I 
now solicit your patronage. You know, I dare 
say, of an application I lately made to your 
Board to be admitted an officer of excise. I 
tave, according to form, been examined by a 
euperviaor, and to-day I gave in his certificate, 
with a request for an order for iustructions. In 



this affair, if I succeed, I am afraid I shall but 
too nnu^h need a patronizing friend. Propriety 
of conduct as a man, and fidelity and attentioa 
as an officer, I dare engage for ; but with any 
thing like business, except manual labour, I am 
totally unacquainted. 



I had intended to have closed my late ap- 
pearance on the stage of life, in the character 
of a couMtry farmer ; but after discharging 
some filial and fraternal claims, I find I could 
only fight for existence in that miserable man- 
ner, which I have lived to see throw a venera- 
ble parent into the jaws of a jail ; whence death, 
the poor man's last and often best friend, rescu- 
ed him. 

I know, Sir, that to need yoiir goodness is to 
have a claim on it ; may I therefore beg your 
patronage to forward me in this affair, till I be 
appointed to a division, where, by the help of 
rigid economy, I will try to support that inde- 
pendence so dear to my soul, but which has 
been too often so distant from my situation. 



When nature her great master-piece designed, ^ 
And fram'd her last, best work, the human mind. 
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan. 
She form'd of various parts the various man. 

Then first she calls the useful many forth ; 
Plain plodding industry, and sober worth ; 
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth. 
And merchandise' whole genus take their birth; 
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds, 
And all mechanics' many-aproned kinds. 
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet. 
The lead and buoy are needful to the net : 
The caput mortuum of gross desires 
Makes a material, for mere knights and squires ; 
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow. 
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough. 
Then marks th' unyielding mass with grave de- 
signs, 
Law, physics, politics, and deep divines : 
Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles. 
The flashing elements of female souls. 

The order 'd system fair before her stood, 
Nature well pleased pronounced it very good ; j 
But ere she gave creating labour o'er. 
Half-jest, she tried one ciuious labour more. 
Some spumy, fiery, ignis futuus matter; 
Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter ; 
With arch alacrity and conscious glee 
(Nature may have her whim as well as we. 
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it) 
She forms the thing, and christens it — a poet. 
Creature, tho' oft the prey of care and sorrow. 
When bless'd to-day unmindful of to-morrow. 
A being form'd t'amuse his graver friends. 
Admired and praised — and there the homage 
ends:. ^^ 



314 



BURNS' WORKS. 



A mortal quite unfit for fortune's strife, 
Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life ; 
Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give, 
"Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live : 
Xonging to wipe each tear, to heal each groan, 
Yet frequent all unheeded in his own. 

But honest Nature is not quite a Turk, 
She laugh'd at first, then felt for her poor work. 
Pitying the propless climber of mankind. 
She cast about a standard tree to find ; 
And to support his helpless woodbine state. 
Attach' d him to the generous truly great. 
A title, and the only one T claim, 
To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Gra- 
ham. 

Pity the tuneful muses' hapless train, 
"Weak, timid landmen on life's stormy main ! 
Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff, 
That never gives — tho' humbly takes enough ; 
The httle fate allows, they share as soon. 
Unlike sage, proverb'd, wisdom's hard-wrung 

boon. 
The world were bless'd, did bless on them de- 
pend, 
Ah, that " the friendly e'er should want a 

friend !" 
Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son, 
Who life and wisdom at one race begun, 
"Who feel by reason, and who give by rule, 
(Instinct's a brute, and sentiment a fool !) 
Who make poor will do wait upon / should — 
"We own they're prudent, but who feels their 

good? 
Ye wise ones, hence ! ye hurt the social eye ! 
God's image rudely etch'd on base alloy ! 
Hut come ye who the godlike pleasure know. 
Heaven's attribute distinguish'd — to bestow ! 
"Whose arms of love would grasp the human race : 
Come thou who giv'st with all a courtier's grace ; 
JFriend of my life, true patron of my rhymes ! 
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times. 
\!\\y shrinks my soul half blushing, half afraid, 
Backward, abash'd to ask thy friendly aid ? 
I know my need, I know thy giving hand, 
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command ; 
But there are such who court the tuneful nine — • 
Heavens, should the branded character be mine ! 
"Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flows, 
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose. 
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit, 
Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit ! 
Seek not the proofs in private life to find ; 
Pity, the best of words, should be but wind ! 
So, to heaven's gates the lark-shrill song ascends. 
But grovelling on the earth the carol ends. 
In all the clam'rous cry of starving want. 
They dun benevolence with shameless front ; 
Oblige them, patronize their tinsel lays, 
They persecute you all your future days ! 
p're my poor soul such deep damnation stain, 
]My horny fist assume the plough again ; 
The pie-ball'd jacket let me patch once more ; 
On eighteen pence a-week I've lived before. 



Though, thanks to heaven, I dare even that last 

shift, 
I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift : 
That placed by thee, upon the wish'd-for height. 
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight, 
My muse may imp her wing for some sublimer 

flight.* 



No. XCIV. - ■■■>•,: 

TO MR. BEUGO, Engraver, EdikKur'QH. 

MY DEAR SIR, MUslaud, Sept. 9, 1788. 

There is not in Edinburgh above the num- 
ber of the graces whose letters would have given 
me so much pleasure as yours of the 3d instant, 
which only reached me yesternight. 

I am here on my fiirm, busy with my har- 
vest ; but for all that most pleasurable part of 
life called social communication', I am here 
at the very elbow of existence. The only things 
that are to be found in this country in any de- 
gree of perfection, arc stupidity and canting. 
Prose, they only know in graces, prayers, &c. 
and the value of these they estimate as they do 
their plaiding webs — by the ell ! As for the 
muses, they have as much an idea of a rhino- 
ceros as of a poet. For my old capricious but 
good-natured hussy of a muse — 

By banks of Nith I sat and wept 

When Coila I thought on, 
In midst thereof I hung my harp 

The willow trees upon. 

I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire 
with my " darling Jean," and then I, at lucid 
intervals, throw my horny fist across my be- 
cobwebbed lyre, much in the same manner'as 
an old wife throws her hand across the spokes 
of her spinning wheel. 

I well send you " The Fortunate Shepherd- 
ess" as soon as I return to Ayrshire, for there 
I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall 
send it by a careful hand, as I would not for 
any thing it should be mislaid or lost. I do 
not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or 
other grave Christian virtue ; 'tis purely a sel- 
fish gratification of my own feelings whenever 
I think of you. 



lo 



If your better functions would give you lei- 
sure to write me I should be extremely happy ; 
that is to say, if you neither keep nor look for a 



• This is our poet's first epistle to Graham of Fin. 
try. It is not equal to the second, but it contains too 
much of the characteristic vigour of its author to be 
suppressed. A httle more knowledge of natural histo- 
ry or of chemistry was wanted to enable him to exe- 
cute the origiuaj conception correctly. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



315 



regular correspondence. I hate tlic idea of beinsf 
obliged to write a letter. I sometimes write a 
friend twice a week, at other times once a 
qtiiiTter. 

I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in 
raakins^ the author yon mention place a map of 
Iceland instead of his portrait before his works : 
'Twas a glorious idea. 

Could you conveniently do me one thini^— • 
Whenever you finish any head I could like to 
have a proof copy of it. T might tell you a 
long story about your fine genius ; but as wliat 
every body knows cannot have escapcil you, I 
shall not say one syllable about it. 



No. XCV. 

TO MISS CHALMERS, Edinburgh. 

Elllsland, near num fries, Sept. \6, 17S8. 
Where are you ? and how are you ? and is 
Lady M'Kenzie recovering her health ? for I 
have had but one solitary letter from you. I 
will not think you have forgot me, Madam ; 
and for my part — 

" When thee Jerusalem I forget, 
Skill part from my right hand !" 

" ]My heart is not of that rock, noi" my soul 
careless as that sea." I do not make my pro- 
gress among mankind as a bowl does among its 
ifelJows — rolling through the crowd without 
bearing away any maik or impression, except 
where they hit in hostile collision. 

I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks 
by bad weather ; and as you and your sister 
once did me the honour of interesting yourselves 
much a Vegard de moi, I sit down to beg the 

continuation of your goodness 1 can truly say 

that, all the exterior of life apart, I never saw 
two, whose esteem flattered tlie nobler feelings 
of my soul — I will not say, more, but, so much 
as Lady M'Kenzie and Miss Chalmers. When I 
think of you — hearts the best, minds the noblest, 
of human kind — unfortunate, even in the shades 
of life — when I think I have met with you, and 
have lived more of real life with you in eight 
(lays, than I can do with almost any body I meet 
with in eight years — when I think on the im- 
probability of meeting you in this world again 
, — I could sit down and cry like a child ! — If 
ever you honoured me with a place in your 
esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. — 
I am secure against that crushing grip of iron 
poverty, which, alas ! is less or more fatal to the 
native worth and purity of, I fear, the noblest 
souk ; and a late, important step in my life has 
kindly taken me out of the way of those un- 
grateful iniquities, which, however overlooked 
in fashionable license, or varnished in fashion- 



able phrase, are indeed hut lighter and deeper 
shades of vim.aint. 

Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I 
married " my Jean." This was not in conse- 
quence of the attachment of romance ])erhaps ; 
but T had a long and much-loved fellow-crea- 
ture's ]iaj)piness or misery in my determination, 
and I durst not trifle with so important a depo- 
sit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I 
have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and 
fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgust- 
ed with the multiform curse of boarding-school 
affectation ; and I have got the handsomest fi- 
gr.re, the sweetest temper, the soundest consti- 
tution, and the kindest heart in the county. 
Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her creed, that 
I am le plus bcl esprit, et le phis honnete homme 
in the universe ; although she scarcely ever in 
her life, except the Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testament, and the Psalms of David in 
metre, spent five minutes together on either 
prose or verse. I must except also from this 
last, a certain late publication of Scots poems, 
which she has perused very devoutly ; and all 
the ballads in the country, as she has (O the 
partial lover ! you will cry) the finest " wood- 
note wild" I ever heard. — I am the more parti- 
cular in this lady's character, as I know she 
will henceforth have the honour of a share in 
your best wishes. She is still at IMauchline, as 
I am building my house ; for this hovel that I 
shelter in, while occasionally here, is pervious to 
every blast that blows, and every shower that 
falls ; and I am only preserved from being chill- 
ed to death, by being suffocated with smoke, I 
do not find my farm that pennyworth I was 
taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may 
be a saving bargain. You will be pleased to 
hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind 
every day after my reapers. 

To save me from that horrid situation of at 
any time going down, in a losing bargain of a 
farm, to misery, I have taken my excise instruc- 
tions, and have my commission in my pocket 
for any emergency of fortune. If I could set all 
before your view, whatever disrespect you in 
common with the world, have for this business, 
I know you would approve of my idea. 

I will make no apology, dear Madam, for this 
egotistic detail : I know you and your sister 
will be interested in every circumstance of it. 
What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, 
or the ideal trumpery of greatness ! When fel- 
low partakers of the same nature fear the same 
God, have the same benevolence of heart, the 
same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at 
every thing dishonest, and the same scorn at 
every thing unworthy — if they are not in the 
dcpendance of absolute beggary, in the name of 
common sense are they not kquals ? And if 
the bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run 
the same way, why may they not be frienus ? 
When I may have an opportunity of sending 
you this, Heaven only knows, Shenstoue says, 
" When one is confined idle within doors by bad 



316 



BURNS' WORKS. 



weather, the best antidote against ennui is, to 
read the letters of, or write to one's friends ;" 
in that case then, if the weather continues thus, 
I may scrawl you half a quire. 

I V3ry lately, to wit, since harvest began, 
wrote a poem, not in imitation, but in the man- 
ner of Pope's Moral Epistles. It is only a short 
essay, just to try the strength of my Muse's pi- 
nion in that way. I will send you a copy of it, 
when once I have heard from you. I have like- 
wise been laying the foundation of some pretty 
large poetic works : how the superstructure 
will come on I leave to that great maker and 
marrer of projects — time. Johnson's collection 
of Scots songs is going on in the third volume ; 
and of consequence finds me a consumpt for a 
great deal of idle metre. — One of the most to- 
lerable things I have done in that way, is, two 
stanzas that I made to an air, a musical gentle- 
man * of my acquaintance composed for the an- 
niversary of his wedding-day, which happens on 
the seventh of November. Take it as follows : 

The day returns — my bosom burns, 

The blissful day we twa did meet, &c. — P. 29. 

I shall give over this letter for shame. If I 
should be seized with a scribbling fit, before this 
goes away, I shall make it another letter ; and 
then you may allow your patience a week's re- 
spite between the two. I have not room for 
more than the old, kind, hearty, farewell ! 

To make some amends, mes cJieres Mesdames, 
lor dragging you on to this second sheet ; and to 
relieve a little the tiresomeness of my unstudied 
and uncorrectible prose, I shall transcribe you 
some of my late poetic bagatelles ; though I have, 
these eight or ten months, done very little that 
way. One day, in an hermitage on the banks 
of Nith, belonging to a gentleman in my neigh- 
bourhood, who is so good as give me a key at 
pleasure, I wrote as follows ; supposing myself 
the sequestered, venerable inhabitant of the 
lonely mansion. 

(^Lines written in Ffiar's Carse Hermitage. f) 



than once ; but scarcely ever with more plea- 
sure than when I received yours of the 12th in- 
stant. To make myself understood ; I had 
wrote to Mr. Graham, enclosing my poem ad- 
dressed to him, and the same post which fa- 
voured me with yours, brought me an answer 
from him. It was dated the very day he had 
received mine ; and I am quite at a loss to say 
whether it was most polite or kind. 

Your criticisms, my honoured benefactress, 
are truly the work of a friend. They are not 
the blasting depredations of a canker-toothed, 
caterpillar critic ; nor are they the fair state- 
ment of cold impartiality, balancing with un- 
feeling exactitude, the pro and con of an au- 
thor's merits ; they aie the judicious observa- 
tions of animated friendship, selecting the beau- 
ties of the piece. I have just arrived from 
Nithsdale, and will be here a fortnight. I was 
on horseback this morning by three o'clock ; 
for between my wife and my farm is just forty- 
six miles. As I jogged on in the dark, I was 
taken with a poetic tit, as follows : 

" Mrs. F of C 's lamentation for the 

death of her son ; an uncommonly promising 
youth of eighteen or nineteen years of age." 

(Here follow the verses, entitled, " A Mo- 
therms Lament for the Loss of her Son,") 

You will not send me your poetic rambles, 
but, you see, I am no niggard of mine. I am 
sure your impromptu's give me double plea- 
sure ; what falls from your pen, can neither be 
unentertaining in itself, nor indifferent to me. 

The 07ie fault you found, is just ; but I can- 
not please myself in an emendation. *^ 

What a life of solicitude is the life of a pa- 
rent ! You interested me much in your young 
couple. 

I would not take my folio paper for this 
epistle, and now I repent it. I am so jaded 
with my dirty long journey that I was afi'aid to 
drawl into the essence of dulness with any thing 
larger than a quarto, and so I must leave out 
another rhyme of this morning's manufacture. 

I will pay the sapientipotent George most 
cheerfully, to hear from yo»i ere I leave Ayr- 
shire. 



No. XCVI. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP, OF DUNLOP. 

Mauchline, 21th Sept. 1788. 
I HAVE received twins, dear Madam, more 



* Captain Riddel of Glenriddel. 

t The poetic temperament is ever predisp-"-°d to 
Bcnsations of tlie " horrible and awful." Bums, in 
returning from his visits at Glenriddel to his farm at 
Ellisland, had to pass through a little wild wood in 
which stood the Hermitage. When tlie night was 
dark and dreary it was his custom generally to solicit 
an additional parting glass to fortify his spirits and 
keep up his courage. This was related by a lady, a 
near relation of Captain Riddel's, who had frequent 
opportunities of seeing this salutary practice exempli- 



No. XCVII. 
TO MR. P. HILL. 

Mauchline, \st October, 1789. 
I HAVE been here in this country about three 
days, and all that time my chief reading has 
been the " Address to Loch Lomond," yon 
were so obliging as to send to me. Were I im- 
pannelled one of the author's jury, to determine 
his criminaUty respecting the sin of poesy, my 
verdict should be " guilty ! A poet of Nature's 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



317 



making!" It Is an excellent method for im- 
provement, and what I heheve every jjoet docs, 
to place some favourite classic author, in his 
own walks of study and composition, before him, 
as a model. Though your author had not men- 
tioned the name, I could have, at half a glance, 
guessed his model to be Thomson. Will my 
brother poet forgive me, if I venture to hint, 
that his imitation of that immortal bard, is in 
two or three places rather more servile than 
such a genius as his required. — e. g. 

To soothe the madding passions all to peace, 

ADDRESS. 

To soothe the throb' ing passions into peace, 

THOMSON. 

I think the Address is, in simplicity, har- 
mony, and elegance of versification, fully equal 
to the Seasons. Like Thomson, too, he has 
looked into nature for himself: you meet with 
no copied description. One particular criti- 
cism I made at first reading : in no one instance 
has he said too much. He never flags in his 
progress, but like a true poet of Nature's mak 
ing, kindles in his course. His beginning is 
simple, and modest, as if distrustful of the 
strength of his pinion ; only, I do not altoge- 
ther like 

" Truth, 

The soul of every song that's nobly great." 

Fiction is the soul of many a song that is no- 
bly great. Perhaps I am wrong : this may be 
but a prose criticism. Is not the phrase, in line 
7, page 6, " Great lake," too much vulgarized 
by every-day language, for so sublime a poem ? 

" Great mass of watei-s, theme for nobler song," 

is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of 
a comparison with other lakes, is at once har- 
monious and poetic. Every reader's ideas nmst 
sweep the 

** Winding margin of an hundred miles." 

The perspective that follows mountains blue — 
the imprisoned billows beating in vain — the 
wooded isles — the digression on the yew-tree — 
** Ben Lomond's lofty cloud-enveloped head," 
&c. are. beautiful. A thunder-storm is a subject 
which has been often tried, yet our poet, in his 
grand picture, has interjected a circumstance, so 
far as I know, entirely original : 

" The gloom 
Deep seam'd with frequent streaks of moving 
fire." 

In his preface to the storm, " the glens how 
dark between," is noble highland landscape! 
The " rain plowing the red mould," too, is 
beautifully fancied. Ben Lomond's " lofty, 



pathless top,'* is a good expression ; and the 
surrounding view from it is truly great ; the 

" Silver mist. 
Beneath the beaming sun," 

is well described ; and here, he has contrived to 
enliven his poem with a little of that passion 
which bids fair, I think, to usurp the modem 
muses altogether. I know not how far this epi- 
sode is a beauty upon the whole, but the swain's 
wish to carry " some faint idea of the vision 
bright," to entertain her " partial listening ear," 
is a pretty thought. But, in my opinion, the 
most beautiful passages in the whole poem, are 
the fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, to Loch 
Lomond's " hospitable flood ;" their wheeling 
round, their lighting, mixing, diving, &c. and 
the glorious description of the sportsman. This 
last is equal to any thing in the Seasons. The 
idea of " the floating tribes distant seem, far 
glistering to the moon," provoking his eye as he 
is obliged to leave them, is a noble ray of poetic 
genius. " The howling winds," the " hideous 
roar" of " the white cascades," are all in the 
same style. 

I forget that while I am thus holding forth, 
with the heedless warmth of an enthusiast, I 
am perhaps tiring you with nonsense. I must, 
however, mention, that the last verse of the six- 
teenth page is one of the most elegant compli- 
ments I have ever seen. I must likewise notice 
that beautiful paragraph, beginning, " The 
gleaming lake," &c. I dare not go into the 
l)articular beauties of the two last paragraphs, 
but they are admirably fine, and truly Ossianic. 

I must beg your pardon for this lengthened 
scrawl. I had no idea of it when I began — I 
should like to know who the author is ; but, 
whoever he be, please present him with my 
grateful thanks for the entertainment he has af- 
forded me. * 

A friend of mine desired me to commission 
for him two books. Letters on the Religion es- 
sential to Man, a book you sent me before ; 
and. The World Unmasked, or the Philosopher 
the greatest Cheat. Send me them by the first 
opportunity. The Bible you sent me is truly 
elegant ; I only wish it had been in two voluntes. 



No. XCVIIL 

TO MRS. DUNLOP, AT MOREHAM 
MAINS. 

MADAM, Mauchlinc, \Sth Nov. 1788. 

I HAD the very great pleasure of dining at 
Dunlop yesterday. Men are said to flatter wo- 



* The poem entitled An Address to Loch Lomond, 
is said to be written by a gentleman, now one of the 
masters of the I ligh School at Edinburgh, and the same 
who translated the beautiful story of the Paria, as pub 
lished in the Bee of Dr. Anderson. 



318 



BURNS' WORKS. 



inen because tliey are weak ; if it is so, poets 
must be weaker still; for Misses R. and K. 
and Miss G. IM'K, with their flattering atten- 
tions, and artful compliments, absolutely turned 
my head. I own they did not Jard me over as 

many a poet does his patron 

but they so intoxicated mo with 

their sly insinuations and delicate iiiuendos of 
compliment, that if it had not been for a lucky 
recollection, how much additional weight and 
histre your good opinion and friendship must 
give me in that circle, 1 had certainly looked 
upon myself as a person of no small consequence. 
I dare not say one word how much I was charm- 
ed with the major's friendly welcome, elegant 
manner, and acute remark, lest I should be 
thought to balance my orientalisms of applause 
over against the finest qney * in Ayrshire, which 
he made a present of to help and adorn my farm, 
stock. As it was on hallow-day, I am deter- 
mined annually as that day returns, to decorate 
her horns with an ode of gratitude to the family 
of Dunlop. 



So soon as I know of your arrival at Dunlop, 
I will take the first conveniency to dedicate a 
day, or perhaps two, to you and friendship, un- 
der the guarantee of the major's hospitality. 
There will soon be threescore and ten miles of 
permanent distance between us ; and now that 
your friendship and friendly correspondence is 
entwisted with the heart-stiings of my enjoy- 
ment of life, I must indulge myself in a happy 
day of " the feast of reason and the flow of soul." 



No. XCIX. 



TO 



SiR, November 8, 1788. 

NoTWiTHSTANniNG the opprobrious epithets 
with which some of our philosophers and gloomy 
sectaries have branded our natuie — the princi- 
ple of universal selfishness, the proneness to all 
evil, they have given us ; still, the detestation 
in which inhumanity to the distressed, or inso- 
lence to the fallen, are held by all mankind, 
shows that they are not natives of the human 
heart. — Even the unhappy partner of our kind, 
who is undone — the bitter consequence of his 
follies or his crimes — who but sympathises with 
the miseries of this ruined profligate brother ? 
we forget the injuries, and feel for the man. 

I went last Wednesday to my parish church, 
most cordially to join in grateful acknowledge- 
ments to the Author of all Good, for the 
consequent blessings of the glorious revolution. 
To that auspicious event we owe no less than 
our liberties civil and religious ; to it we are 
likewise indebted for the present Royal Family, 



L 



the ruling features of whose administration have 
ever been, mildness to the subject, and tenderness 
of his rights. 

Bred and educated in revolution principles, 
the principles of reason and common sense, it 
could not be any silly political prejudice which 
made my heart revolt at the harsh, abusive man- 
ner, in which the reverend gentleman mention- 
ed the House of Stuart, and which I am afraid, 
was too much the language of the day. We 
may rejoice sufficiently in our deliverance from 
past evils, without cruelly raking up the ashes 
of those, whose misfortune it was, perhaps as 
much as their crime, to be tbe authors of those 
evils ; and we may bliss God for all his good- 
ness to us as a nation, without, at the same time, 
cursing a few ruined, powerless exiles, who only 
harboured ideas, and made attempts, that most 
of us would have done, had we been in their si- 
tuation. 

" The bloody and tyrannical House of Stuart," 
may be said with propriety and justice when 
compared with the present Royal Family, and 
the sentiment:? of our days ; but is there no al- . 
lowance to be made for the manners of the 
times ? Were the royal contemporaries of the' 
Stuarts more attentive to their subjects' rights ? 
Might not the epithets of " bloody and tyranni- 
cal" be, with at least equal justice, applied to 
the House of Tudor, of York, or any other of 
their predecessors ? 

The simple state of the Case, Sir,' seetris to be 
this — At that period, the science of government, 
the knowledge of the true relation between king 
and subject, was, like other sciences and other 
knowledge, just in its infancy, emerging from 
dark ages of ignorance and barbarity. 

The Stuarts only contended for prerogatives 
which they knew their predecessors enjoyed, and 
which they saw their contemporaries enjoying ; 
but these prerogatives were inimical to the hap- 
piness of a nation, and the rights of subjects. 

In this contest between prince and people, 
the consequence of that light of science, which 
had lately dawned over Europe, the monarch 
of France, for example, was victorious over the 
struggling liberties of his people : with xis, luckily 
the monarch failed, and his unwarrantable pre- 
tensions fell a sacrifice to our rights and happi- 
ness. Whether it was owing to the wisdom 
of leading individuals, or to the justling of par- 
ties, I cannot pretend to determine ; but like- 
wise, happily for us, the kingly power was shift- 
ed into another branch of the family, who, as 
they owed the throne solely to the call of a free 
people, could claim nothing inconsistent with 
the covenanted terms which placed them there. 

The Stuarts have been condemned and laugh- 
ed at for the folly and impracticability of their 
attempts in 1715 and 1745. That they failed, 
bless God ; but cannot join in the ridicule a- 
gainst them. Who does not know that the abi- 
lities or defects of leaders and commanders are 
often hidden until put to the touchstone of exi- 
gency ; and that there is a caprice of fortune* 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



319 



aa omnipotence in paitlculur acc-iilents atid con- 
junctures of circumstances, which exalt u« as he- 
roes, or brand us as madmen, just as they are 
for or against Us? 

Man, Mr. Publisher, is a strange, weak, in- 
consistent being. Who would beheve, Sir, that, 
in this our Augustan age of liberality and re- 
linement, while we seem so justly sensible and 
jealous of our riglits and liberties, and animated 
with such indignation against the very memory 
of those who would have subverted them — that 
a certain people, under our national protection, 
should complain not against our monarch and 
a few favourite advisers, but against our whole 
I.KGISLATIVE jiOUY, for Similar oppression, and 
almost in the very same terms, as our forefathers 
did of the House of Stuart ! I will not, I can- 
not enter into the merits of the cause, but I dare 
say the American Congress, in 1776, will be al- 
lowed to be as able and as enlightened as the 
English convention was in 1688 ; and that their 
posterity will celebrate the centenary of their de- 
liverance from us, as duly and sincerely as we 
do ours from the oppressive measures of the 
wrong-headed House of Stuart. 

To conclude, Sir ; let every man who has a 
tear for the many miseries incident to humani- 
ty, feel for a family illustrious as any in Europe, 
and unfortunate beyond historic precedent ; and 
let every Briton (and particularly every Scots- 
man), who ever looked with reverential pity on 
the dotage of a parent, cast a veil over the fatal 
mistakes of the kings of his forefathers. * 



No. C. 



TO MR. JAMES JOHNSON, Engkaver, 
Edinburgh. 

MaucUine, Nov. 15, 1788. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

I HAVE sent you two more songs. — If you 
have got any tunes, or any thing to correct, 
please send them by return of the carrier. 

I can easily see, my dear friend, that you will 
very probably have four volumes. Perhaps you 
may not find your account lucrativdy, in this 
business ; but you are a patriot for the music of 
your country ; and I am certain, posterity will 
look on themselves as highly indebted to your 
public spirit. Be not in a hurry ; let us go on 
correctly ; and your name shall be immortal. 

I am preparing a flaming preface for your 
third volume. I see every day, new musical 
publications advertised ; but what are they ? 
Gaudy, hunted butterflies of a day, and then va- 
nish for ever : but your work will outlive the 
momentary neglects of idle fashion, and defy the 
teeth of time. 



Have you never a fair goddess that leads you 
a wild-goose chase of amorous devotion ? Let 
me know a few of her quahties, such as, whe- 
ther she be either black, or fair ; plump, or 
thin ; short, or tall, &c. ; and choose your air, 
and I shall task my Muse to celebrate lier. 



No. CI. 



* This letter was sent to the publisher of the Edin 
burgh Evening CouranU 



TO DR. BLACKLOCK. 

MaucJdlne, Nov. 15, 1788. 

KEV. AND DI:AR sir, 

As I hear nothing of your motions but that 
you are, or were, out of town, I do not know 
where this may find you, or whether it will find 
you at all. I wrote you a long letter, dated 
from the land of matrimony, in June ; but 
either it hud not found you, or, what I dread 
more, it found you or Mrs. Blacklock in too 
precarious a state of health and spirits, to take 
notice of an idle packet. 

I have done many little things for Johnson, 
since I had tlie pleasure of seeing you ; and I 
have finished one piece, in the way of Pope's 
Mural J£pistks ; but from your silence, I have 
every thing to fear, so I have only sent you two 
melancholy things, which I tremble lest they 
should too well suit the tone of your present 
feelings. 

In a fortnight I move, bag and baggage, to 
Nithsdale ; till then, my direction is at this 
place ; after that period, it will be at Ellisland, 
near Dumfries. It would extremely oblige me 
were it but half a line, to let me know how you 
are, and where you are. — Can I be indiffierent 
to the fate of a man, to whom I owe so much? 
A man whom I not only esteem but venerate. 

My warmest good wishes and most resj)ectful 
compliments to IMrs. Blacklock, and Miss John- 
ston, if she is with you. 

I cannot conclude without telling you that I 
am more and more pleased with the step I took 
respecting " my Jean." — Two tilings, from my 
happy experience, I set down as apothegms in 
life. A wife's head is immaterial, compared 
with her heart — and — " Virtue's (for wisdom 
what poet pretends to it) — ways arc ways of 
pleasantness, and all her paths arc peace." 
Adieu ! 



(Here follow " The mother's Inmcnt for the 
loss of her son," p. 200, and the song begin- 
ning, " The lazy mist htinijs from the hrotv of 
the hill," p. 23 1.) 



320 



BURNS' WORKS. 



No. CII. 
TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

EUisland, llth JDecember, 1788. 

MY DEAR HONOURED FRIEND, 

Yours, dated Edinburgh, which I have just 
read, makes me very unhappy. Ahnost " blind 
and wholly deaf," are melancholy news of hu- 
man nature ; but when told of a much loved 
and honoured friend, they carry misery in the 
sound. Goodness on your part, and gratitude 
on mine, began a tie, which has gradually and 
strongly eotwisted itself among the dearest 
chords of my bosom ; and I tremble at the 
omens of your late and present ailing habits 
and shattered health. You miscalculate mat- 
ters widely, when you forbid my waiting on 
you, lest it should hurt my worldly concerns. 
My small scale of farming is exceedingly more 
simple and easy than what you have lately 
seen at Moreham INIains. But be that as it 
may, the heart of the man, and the fancy of 
the poet, are the two grand considerations for 
which I live : if miry ridges, and dirty dung- 
hills are to engross the best part of the func- 
tions of my soul immortal, I had better been a 
rook or a magpie at once, and then I should 
not have been plagued with any ideas superior 
to breaking of clods, and picking up grubs ; 
not to mention barn-door cocks or mallards, 
creatures with which I could almost exchange 
lives at any time. — If you continue so deaf, I 
am afraid a visit will be no great pleasure to 
either of us ; but if I hear you are got so well 
again as to be able to relish conversation, look 
you to it, Madam, for 1 will make my threaten- 
ings good : I am to be at the new-year-day fair 
of Ayr, and by all that is sacred iu the world, 
fiieud, I will come and see you. 



Your meeting, which you so well describe, 
with your old schoolfellow and fiiend, was tru- 
ly interesting. Out upon the ways of the world ! 
— They spoil these " social oflFsprings of the 
heart." Two veterans of the " men of the 
world" would have met, with little more heart- 
workings than two old hacks worn out on the 
road. Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase, 
" Auld lang syne," exceedingly expressive. 
There is an old song and tune which has often 
thrilled through my soul. You know I am an 
enthusiast in old Scotch songs. I shall give you 
the verses on the other sheet, as I suppose Mr. 
Ker will save you the postage. * 

Light be the turf on the breast of the Hea- 
ven-inspired poet who composed tliis glorious 
fragment ! There is more of the fire of native 
genius in it, than in half a dozen of modern 
English Bucchanalians. Now I am on ray 



* Here follows the song of Auld lans fVnc, 



hobby horse, I cannot help inserting two other 
old stanzas, which please me mightily. 

Go fetch to me a pint o' wine. 
An' fill it in a silver tassie. 

(See Songs p. 212.) 



No. cm. 
TO A YOUNG LADY, 

who HAD HEARD HE HAD BEEN MAKING A 
BALLAD ON HER, ENCLOSING THAT BALLAD. 

MADAM, December, 1788. 

I UNDERSTAND my vcry worthy neighbour, 
Mr. Riddel, has informed you that I have made 
you the subject of some verses. There is some- 
thing so provoking in the idea of being the bur- 
den of a ballad, that I do not think Job or 
Moses, though such patterns of patience and 
meekness, could have resisted the curiosity to 
know what that ballad was : so my worthy- 
friend has done me a mischief, which I dare say 
he never intended ; and reduced me to the un- 
fortunate alternative of leaving your curiosity 
ungratified, or else disgusting you with foohsh 
verses, the unfinished production of a random 
moment, and never meant to have met your ear. 
I have heard or read somewhere of a gentleman, 
who had some genius, much eccentricity, and 
very considerable dexterity with his pencil. In 
the accidental groups of life into which one is 
thrown, wherever this gentleman met with a 
character in a more than ordinary degree con- 
genial to his heart, he used to steal a sketch of 
the face, merely, he said, as a nota bene to point 
out the agreeable recollection to his memory. 
What this gentleman's pencil was to him, is ray 
muse to me ; and the verses I do myself the 
honour to send you are a memento exactly of the 
same kind that he indulged in. 

It may be more owing to the fastidiousness 
of my caprice, than the delicacy of my taste, 
that I am so often tired, disgusted, and hurt 
with the insipidity, affectation, and pride ot" 
mankind, that when I meet with a person 
" after my own heart," I positively feel what 
an orthodox protestant would call a species of 
idolatry which acts on my fancy like inspira- 
tion, and I can no more desist rhyming on the 
impulse, than an iEolian harp can refuse its 
tones to the streaming air. A distich or two 
would be the consequence, though the object 
which hit my fancy were grey-bearded age ; 
but where my theme is youth and beauty, a 
young lady whose personal charms, wit, and 
sentiment, are equally striking and unaffected, 
by heavens ! though I had lived threescore years 
a married man, and threescore years before I 
was a married man, my imagination would hal- 
low the very idea ; and I am truly sorry that 
the enclosed stanzas have done such poor justice 
to such a subject. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



321 



No. CIV. 

TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD. 

SIR, December, 1788. 

Mr. M'Kenzie,- in Mauchline, my very warm 
and worthy friend, has informed me how much 
you are pleased to interest youiself iu my fate 
as a man, and, (what to me is incomparably 
dearer) my fame as a poet. I have, Sir, iu one 
or two instances, been patronized by those of 
your chara(rter in lite, when I was introduced 

to their notice by friends to them, 

and honoured acfpiaintances to me : but you 
are the first gentleman in the country whose 
benevolence and goodness of heart has interest- 
ed him for me, unsolicited and unknown. I 
am not master enough of the etiquette of these 
matters to know, nor did I stay to inquire, 
whether formal duty bade, or cold propriety 
disallowed, my thanking you in this manner, as 
I am convinced, from the light in which you 
kindly view me, that you will do me the justice 
to believe this letter is not the mancpuvrc of a 
needy, sharping author, fastening on those in 
upper life, who honour him witli a little notice 
of him or his works. Indeed the situation of 
poets is generally such, to a proverb, as may, 
in some measure, palliate that prostitution of 
heart and talents they have at times been guilty 
of. I do not think prodigality is, by an means, 
H necessary concomitant of a poetic turn, but 
believe a careless, indolent inattention to econo- 
my, is almost inseparable from it ; then there 
must be in the heart of every bard of Nature's 
making, a certain modest sensibility, mixed 
with a kind of pride, that will ever keep him 
out of the way of those windfalls of fortune, 
which frequently light on hardy impudence 
and foot-licking servility. It is not easy to 
imagine a more helpless state than his, whose 
poetic fancy unfits him for the world, and whose 
charac'ter as a scholar, gives him some preten- 
sions to the politesse of life — yet is as poor as I 
am. 

For my part, I thank Heaven, my star has 
tteeii kinder ; learning never elevated my ideas 
above the peasant's shed, and I have an inde- 
pendent fortune at the plough-tail. 

I was surprised to hear that any one, who 
pretended in the least to the vianners of the 
fientleman, should be so foolish, or worse, as to 
stoop to traduce the morals of such a one as I 
am, and so inhumanly cruel, too, as to meddle 
with that late most unfortunate, unhappy part 
of my story. With a tear of gratitude, 1 thank 
you, Sir, for the warmth with which you inter- 
posed in behalf of my conduct. I am, I ac- 
knowledge, too frequently the sport of whim, 
caprice, and passion — but reverence to God, 
and integrity to my fellow-creatures, I hope I 
shall ever preserve. I have no return, Sir, to 
make you for your goodness but one — a return 
which, I am persuaded, will not be unaccept- 
able — the houust, warm wislies of a gxateful 



heart lor your happiness, and every one of that 
lovely flock, who stand to you in a filial rela- 
tion. If ever calumny aim the poisoned shaft 
at them, may friendship be by to ward the 
blow ! 



LETTERS, 1789. 



No. CV. 
FROM MR. G. BURNS. 

DKAii HKOTiiEK, Mossgicl, \st Jan. 1789. 

I HAVE just finished my new-year's-day 
breakfast in the usual form, which naturally 
makes me call to mind the days of former years, 
and the society in which we used to begin 
them ; and when I look at our family vicissi- 
tudes, " through the dark j)ostern of time long 
elapsed," I cannot help remarking to you, ray 
dear brother, how good the Gon of Seasons 
is to us ; and that however some clouds may 
seem to lower over the portion of time before 
us, we have great reason to hope that all will 
turn out well. 

Your mother and sisters, with Robert the 
second, join me in the compliments of the sea- 
son to you and Mrs. Burns, and beg you will 
reuK^ndier us iu the same manner to William, 
the first time you see him. 

1 am, dear brother, yours, 

GILBERT BURNS. 



No. CVI. 



TO IMRS. DUNLOP. 

FAlislavd, New- Year-Dui/ Morjiing, 1 789. 

Iijjs, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes, 
and would to (jon that I came under the apos- 
tle J'lines's descrij)tiou ! — the jrrarjer of a ri(/h- 
tvjms man aimihth much. In that case. Ma- 
dam, you shtmld welcome in a year full of bles- 
sings ; every thing that obstructs or disturbs 
tranquillity and self-enjoyment, should be re- 
moved, and every pleasure that frail humanity 
can taste, should be yours. I own myself so 
little a Presbyterian, that I approve of set times 
and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devo- 
tion, for breaking in on that habituated routiue 
of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce 
our existence to a kind of instinct, or even 
sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very 
httle superior to mere machinery. 

This day ; the first Sunday of May ; a breezy, 
blue-skyed noon some time about the begiimmg, 
and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about 
the end, of autumn ; these, time out of uiiud, 
have been with me a kind of holiday. 



Gi 



S22 



BURNS' WORKS. 



I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in 
the Spectator, " The Vision of Mirza ;" a 
piece that struck my young fancy before I was 
capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syl- 
lables : ** On the 5th day of the moon, which, 
according to the custom of my forefathers, I al- 
ways keep holt/, after having washed myself, 
and oflfered up my morning devotions, I ascend- 
ed the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the 
rest of the day in meditation and prayer." 

We know nothing, or next to nothing, of 
the substance or structure of our souls, so can- 
not account for those seeming caprices, in them, 
that one should be particularly pleased with this 
thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of 
a different cast, makes no extraordinary im- 
pression. I have some fivvourite flowers in 
spring, among which are the mountain daisy, 
the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild-brier rose, 
the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, 
that I view and hang over with particular de- 
light. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle 
of the curlew, in a summer noon, or the wild 
mixing cadence of a troop of grey plover, in an 
autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation 
of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poe- 
try. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this 
be owing ? Are we a piece of machinery, which, 
like the JEoYmn harp, passive, takes the impres- 
sion of the passing accident ? Or do these work- 
ings argue something within us above the trod- 
den clod ? I own myself partial to such proofs 
of those awful and important realities — a God 
that made all things — man's immaterial and im- 
mortal nature — and a world of weal or woe be- 
yond death and the grave. 



No. CVII. 



i^FROM THE REV. P. CARFRAE. 

SIR, 2d January, 1789. 

If you have lately seen Mrs. Duulop, of 
Dunlop, you have certainly heard of the author 
of the verses which accompany this letter. He 
was a man highly respectable for every accom- 
plishment and virtue which adorns the charac- 
ter of a man or a Christian. To a great de- 
gree of literature, of taste, and poetic genius, 
was added an invincible modesty of temper, 
which prevented, in a great degree, his figuring 
in life, and confined the perfect knowledge of 
his character and talents to the small circle of 
his chosen friends. He was untimely taken 
from us, a few weeks ago, by an inflammatory 
fever, in the prime of life — beloved by all, who 
enjoyed his acquaintance, and lamented by all, 
who have any regard for virtue or genius. There 
is a woe pronounced in Scripture against the 
person whom all men speak well of j if ever 



that woe fell upon the head of mortal man, it 
fell upon him. He has left behind him a con- 
siderable number of compositions, chiefly poeti- 
cal ; sufficient, I imagine, to make a large oc- 
tavo volume. In particular, two complete and 
regular tragedies, a farce of three acts, and some 
smaller poems on different subjects. It falls to 
my share, who have lived in the most intimate 
and uninterrupted friendship with him from my 
youth upwards, to transmit to you the verses he 
wrote on the publication of your incomparable 
poems. It is probable they were his last, as 
they were found in his scrutoire, folded up with 
the form of a letter addressed to you, and I im- 
agine, were only prevented from being sent by 
himself, by that melancholy dispensation which 
we still bemoan. The verses themselves I will 
not pretend to criticise when writing to a gen- 
tleman whom I consider as entirely qualified to 
judge of their merit. They are the only verses 
he seems to have attempted in the Scottish 
style ; and I hesitate not to say, in general, that 
they will bring no dishonour on the Scottish 
muse ; — and allow me to add, that if it is your 
opinion they are not unworthy of the author, 
and will be no discredit to you, it is the incli- 
nation of Mr. Mylne's friends that they should 
be immediately published in some periodical 
work, to give the world a specimen of what 
may be expected from his performances in the 
poetic line, which, perhaps, will be afterwaids 
published for the advantage of his family. 



I must beg the favour of a letter from you, 
acknowledging the receipt of this, and to be 
allowed to subscribe myself with great regard. 
Sir, your most obedient servant, 

P. C 



No. CVIII. 



TO DR. MOORE. 

Ellkland, near Dumfries, it/i Jan. 1789. 
sill, 

As often as I think of writing to you, whien 
has been three or four times every week these 
six months, it gives me something so like the 
idea of an ordinary-sized statue offering at a con- 
versation with the Rhodian Colossus, that my 
mind misgives me, and the affair always miscar- 
ries somewhere between purpose and resolve. I 
have, at last, got some business with you, and 
business-letters are written by the style-book. — 
I say my business is with you. Sir, for you never 
had any with me, except the business that bene- 
volence has in the mansion of poverty. 

The character and employment of a poet 
were formerly my pleasure, but are now my 
pride. 1 know that a very great deal of mjr 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



323 



late eclat was owlnj^ to the sinjTularity of my 
situation, and the honest prejiuhco of Scotsmen ; 
but still, as I said in the jjieface to my first edi- 
tion, I do look upon myself as having some pre- 
tensions from Nature to the poetic character. I 
nave not a doubt but the knack, tlie aptitude, to 
^earu the Muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by 
Him " who forms the secret bias of the soul 
— but as I firmly believe, that excellence in the 
profession is the fruit of industry, lalwur, atten- 
tion, and pains. At least I am resolved to try 
my doctrine by the test of experience. Another 
appearance from the press I put off to a very 
distant day, a day that may never arrive — but 
poesy I am determined to prosecute with all my 
vigour. Nature has given very few, if any, of 
the profession, the talents of shining in every 
species of composition. I shall try (for until 
trial it is impossible to know), whether she has 
qualified me to shine in any one. The worst of 
it is, by the time one has finished a piece, it has 
been so often viewed and reviewed before the 
mental eye, that one loses, in a good measure, 
the powers of critical discrimination. Here the 
best criterion I know is a frieuu^not only of 
abilities to judge, but with good nature enough, 
like a prudent teacher with a young learner, to 
praise perhaps a little more than is exactly just, 
lest the thin-skinned animal fall into that most 
deplorable of all poetic diseases — heart-breaking 
despondency of himself. Dare I, Sir, already 
immensely indebted to your goodness, ask the 
additional obligation of your being that friend to 
me ? I enclose you an essay of miue, in a walk 
of poesy to me entirely new ; I mean the epistle 
addressed to R. G., Esq., or Robert Graham, of 
Fintry, Esq., a gentleman of uncommon worth, 
to whom I lie under very great obligations. The 
story of the poem, like most of my poems, is 
connected with my own story, and to give you 
the one, I must give you something of the other. 
I cannot boast of 



of so much. I give myself no airs on this, for 
it was mere selfishness on my part ; I was con- 
scious that the wrong scale of the balance was 
pretty heavily charged, and I thought that 
throwing a little filial piety, and fraternal affec- 
tion, into the scale in my favour, might help to 
smooth matters at the grand reckoning. There 
is still one thing would make my circumstances 
quite easy ; I have an excise officer's commis- 
sion, and I live in the midst of a country divi- 
sion. My request to Mr. Graham, who is one 
of the commissioners of excise, was, if in his 
power, to procure me that division. If I were 
very sanguine, I might hope that some of my 
great patrons might procure me a treasury war- 
rant for supervisor, surveyor -general, &c. 



Thus secure of a livelihood, ** to thee, sweet 
poetry, delightful maid," I would consecrate my 
future days. 



No. CIX. 



I believe I shall, in whole, L. 1 00 copy-right 
included, clear about L.iOO some little odds ; 
and even part of this dc})ends upon what the 
gentleman has yet to settle with me. I give 
you this information, because you did me the 
honour to interest yourself much in my welfare. 



To give the rest of my story in brief, I have 
married " my Jean," and taken a farm ; with 
the first step I have every day more and more 
reason to be satisfied ; with the last, it is rather 
the reverse. I have a younger brother, who 
supports my aged mother ; another still younger 
brother, and three sisters, in a farm. On my 
last return from Fldiuburgh, it cost me about 
L.180 to save them from ruin. Not that T 
bave lost so much — I only interposed between 
mv brother and his impending fate by the loan 



TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Ellhland, Jan. 6, 1789. 

]\Tany happy returns of the season to you, 
my dear Sir ! May you be comparatively happy 
up to your comparative worth among the sons 
of men ; which wish would, I am sure, make 
you one of the most blest of the human race. 

I do not know if passing a " Writer to the 
Signet" be a trial of scientific merit, or a mere 
business of friends and interest. However it be, 
let me quote you my two favourite passages, 
which though I have repeated them ten thou- 
sand times, still they rouse my manhood aud 
steel my resolution like inspiration. 

On Reason build resolve. 

That column of true majesty in man. 

Young. 

Hear, Alfred, hero of the state. 

Thy genius heaven's high will declare ; 

The triumph of the truly great 

Is never, never to despair ! 

Is never to despair ! 

Masque of Alfred. 

I grant you enter the lists of life, to struggle 
for bread, business, notice, and distinction, in 

conimoii with hundreds But who are they .' 

^len, like yourself, and of that aggregate body, 
your compeers, seven-tenths of them come short 
of your advantages natural and accidental ; while 
two of those tliat remain either neglect their 
parts, as flowers blooming in a flesert, or mis- 
spend their strength, like a bull goring a bram- 
ble bush. 



324 



BURNS' WORKS. 



But to change the theme : I am still catering 
for Johnson's publication ; ami among otliors, 
1 have brushed up the following old favourite 
song a little, with a view to your worship. I 
have only altered a word here and there ; but if 
you like the humour of it, we shall think of a 
stanza or two to add to it. 



No. ex. 



TO BISHOP GEDDES. 

JElUsland, near Dumfries, 3d Feb. 1789, 

VENERABLE FATHER, 

As I am conscious that wherever I am you do 
me the honour to interest yourself in my wel- 
fare, it gives me pleasure to inform you, that I 
am here at last, stationary in the serious busi- 
ness of life, and have now not only the retired 
leisure, but the hearty inclination, to attend to 
those great and important questions — what I 
am? where I am? and for what I am destined ? 

In that first concern, the conduct of the man, 
there was ever but one side on which I was 
habitually blameable, and there I have secured 
myself in the way pointed out by Nature and 
Nature's God. I was sensible that, to so help- 
less a creature as a poor poet, a wife and family 
were incumbrances, which a species of prudence 
would bid him shun ; but when the alternative 
was, being at eternal warfare with myself, on 
account of habitual follies, to give them no worse 
name, which no general example, no licentious 
wit, no sophistical infidelity would, to me, ever 
justify, I must have been a fool to have hesitat- 
ed, and a madman to have made another choice. 



In the affair of a livelihood, I think myself 
tolerably secure : I have good hopes of my 
farm ; but should they fail, I have an excise 
commission, which on my simple jietitiou, will, 
at any time, procure me bread. There is a cer- 
tain stigma affixed to the character of an excise 
officer, but I do not intend to borrow honour 
from any profession ; and though the salary be 
coin])aratively small, it is great to any thing 
that the first twenty-five years of my life taught 
me to expect. 



Thus, with a rational aim and method in life, 
you may easily guess, my reverend and much- 
lionourcd friend, that my characteristical trade 
is not forgotten. I am, if possible, more thun 
ever au enthusiast to the rouses. 1 am deter- 
iniaed to study man and nature, ami in that 
view incessantly ; and to try if the ripening and 



corrections of years can enable me to produce 
something worth preserving. 

You will see in your book, which I beg your 
pardon for detaining so long, that I have been 
tuning my lyre on the banks of Nith. Some 
larger poetic plans that are floating in my ima- 
gination, or partly put in execution, I shall im- 
part to you when I have the pleasure of meet- 
ing with you, which, if you are then in Edin- 
burgh, I shall have about the beginning of 
March. 

That acquaintance, worthy Sir, with whicli 
you were jileased to honour me, you must still 
allow me to challenge ; for with whatever un- 
concern I give up my transient <;onnection with 
the merely great, 1 cannot lose the patronizing 
notice of the learned and the good, without the 
bitterisit resjret. 



No. CXI. 



TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Ellhland, Uh March, 1789. 
Here am I, my honoured friend, returned safe 
from the capital. To a man, who has a home, 
however hund)le or remote — if that home is like 
mine, the scene of domestic ciunfort — the bustle 
of Edinburgh will soon be u business of sicken- 
ing disgust. 

" Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate you !" 

Wlieu I must skulk into a corner, lest the 
rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead 
should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted 
to exclaim — " what merits has he had, or what 
demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, 
that he is ushered into this state of being with 
the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches, in his 
])uny fist, and I am kicked into the world, the 
sport of folly, or the victim of pride ?" 1 have 
read somewhere of a monarch (in Spain I think 
it was), who was so out of humour Avith the 
Ptolemean system of astronomy, that he said, 
had he been of the Creatop.'s council, he could 
have saved him a great deal of labour and ab- 
surdity. I will not defend this blasphemous 
speech ; but often, as I have glided with humble 
stealth through the pomp of l*rince's Street, it 
has suggested itself to me, as an improvement 
on the present human figure, that a man, in 
proportion to bis own conceit of his consequence 
in the world, could have pushed out the longi- 
tude of his common size, as a snail pushes out 
his horns, or as we draw out a perspective. 
This tiifling alteration, not to mention the pro- 
digious saving it would be in the tear and wear 
of the neck and limb-sinews of many of his IMa- 
jesty's liege subjticts in the way of tossing the 
head and tiptoe strutting, would evidently turn 
out a vast advantage, in enabling us at once to 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



325 



adjust the ceremonials in makini:^ a bow, or 
making way to a great man, and that too within 
a second of the precise spherical angle of reve- 
rence, or an inch of tlie particular point of re- 
spectful distance, which the important creatnre 
itself requires ; as a measuring-glance at its 
towering altitude would determine the aifair like 
instinct. 

You are right, TNfadam, in yonr idea of p(M)r 
M vine's poem, which he has addressed to me. 
The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has 
one great fault — it is, by far, too long. Ik- 
sides, my success has encouraged such a shoal 
of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into pul)lic 
notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that 
the very term of Scottish Poetry borders on 

the burlesque. When I write to Mr. C , 

I shall advise him rather to try one of his de- 
ceased friend's English pieces. I am prodigi- 
ously hurried with my own matters, else 1 
woidd have reijuested a perusal of all iMyhie's 
poetic performances ; and would have otFered 
his friends my assistance in either selecting or 
correcting what would be proper for the press. 
What it is that occupies me so much, and per- 
haps a little oppresses my present spirits, shall 
fill up a paragraph in some future letter. In 
the meantime allow me to close this epistle with 
a few lines done by a friend of mine . . 

I give you them, that as you have seen 
the original, you may giwss whether one or two 
alterations I have ventured to make in them, bt 
any real improvement. 

Like the fair plant that from our touch witli- 

draws, 
Shrink mildly fearful even from applause, 
Be all a mother's fondest hope can dream, 

And all you are, my charming , seem. 

Straight as the fox-glove, ere her bells disclose, 
jMild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows, 
Fair as the fairest of each lovely kind, 
\^)ur form shall be the image of your mind : 
Your manners shall so true your soul express, 
That all shall long to know the worth they 

guess ; 
Congenial hearts shall greet with kindred love 
And even sick'uiog envy nmst approve,* 



No. CXII. 

LETTER FROM WILLIAM BURNS, THE 
POET'S BROTHER. 

[This and three letters which follow hereafter, are 
the genui ne and artless profluctions of the poet's 
younger Brother, William Burns, a young 
man, who after having served an apprentice- 
ship to the trade of a Saddler, took his road 



• 'Ihese beautiful lines, we have reason to believe, 
are the proiluetion of the lady U) whom this letter is 
adressed. 



towards the South, and having resided a 
short time at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, arrived 
iu London, where he died of a putrid lever 
in the year 17i)0.] 

DEAR SIR, Longtown, Feb. 15, 1789. 

As I am now in a manner only entering into 
the world, I begin this our correspondence, with 
a view of being a gainer by your advice, more 
than ever you can be by any thing I can write 
you of vvhat I see, or what I hear, in the course 
of my wanderings. I know not how it hap- 
j)ened, but you were more shy of your counsel 
than I could have wished the time I staid with 
you : whether it was because you thought it 
would disgust me to have my faults freely told 
me while I was dependant on you ; or whether 
it was because you saw that by my indolent dis- 
position, your instructions would have no effect, 
I cannot determine ; but if it proceeded from 
any of the above causes, the reason of withholding 
your admonition is now done away, for I now 
stand on my own bottom, and that indolence, 
which I am very conscious of, is something 
rubbed off, by being called to act in life whether 
I will or not ; and my inexperience, which I 
daily feel, makes me wish for that advice which 
you are so able to give, and which 1 can only 
expect from you or (iilbert since the loss of the 
kindest and ablest of fathers. 

The morning after I went from the Isle, I 
left Dumfries about five o'clock and came to 
Annan to breakfust, and staid about an hour ; 
and 1 reached this place about two o'clock. I 
have got work here, and I intend to stay a month 
or six weeks, and then go forward, as I wish to 
be at York about the latter end of summer, 
where I propose? to spend next winter, and go 
on for London in the spring. 

I have the piomise of seven shillings a week 
from Mr. I'roctor while I stay here, and six- 
pence more if he succeeds himself, for he has 
only new begun trade here. I am t») pay four 
shillings per week of board wages, sr) that my 
neat income here will be much the same as iu 
Dumfries. 

The enclosed you will send to Gilbert witli 
the first opportunity. Please send nie the first 
Wednesday after you receive this, bv the Car- 
lisle waggon, two of my coaise shirts, one of 
my best linen ones, my velveteen vest, and a 
neckcloth ; write to me along with them, and 
direct to me. Saddler, in Lougtown, and they 
will not miscarry, f(u- I am boarded in the 
waggoner's house. You may either let thein 
be given ui to tlie waggon, or send them to- 
('oulthard and Gellebonrn's sliop and they will 
forward them. Pray write me ofteu while J 
stay here. — 1 wish you would send me a letter, 
though never so small, every week, for they 
will be no expense to me, aud but little trouble 
to you. Please to give my best wishes to my sis- 
ter-in-law, and believe me to be your affectionate 
Aud obliged Brother, 

WILLIAM BURNS. 



326 



BURNS' WORKS. 



P. S. The great coat you gave me at parting 
did me singular service the day I came here, and 
merits my hearty thanks. Fiom what lias heen 
said the conclusion is this; that my hearty 
thanks and my best wishes are all that you and 
my sister must expect from 

W. B. 



of the deceased ; and to secure, in the most ef 
fectual manner, to those tender connections, 
whose right it is, the pecuniary reward of those 
merits. 



No. CXIII. 
TO THE REV. P. CARFRAE. 

REVEREND SIR, 1789. 

I no not recollect that I have ever felt a se- 
verer pang of shame, than on looking at the 
date of your obliging letter, whicli accompanied 
Mr. Myhie's poem. 



I am much to blame : the honour IVfr. INIylne 
has done me, greatly enhanced in its value by 
the endearing, though melancholy circumstance, 
of its being the last production of his muse, de- 
served a better return. 

I have, as you hint, thought of sending a 
copy of the poem to some periodical publica- 
tion ; but, on second thoughts, I am afraid 
that, in the present case, it would be an im- 
proper step. ]\Jy success, perhaps as much ac- 
cidental as merited, has brought an inundation 
of nonsense under the name of Scottish poetry. 
Subscription-bills for Scottisli poems have so 
dunned, and daily do dun the public, that the 
very name is in danger of contempt. For these 
reasons, if publishing any of Mr. M.'s poems in 
a magazine, &c. be at all prudent, in my opinion 
it certainly should not be a Scottish poem. The 
profits of the labours of a man of genius, are, 1 
hope, as honourable as any profits whatever ; 
and Mr. Mylne's relations are most justly en- 
titled to that honest harvest, which fate has de- 
nied himself to reap. But let the friends of Mr. 
Mylne's fame (among whom I crave the honour 
of ranking myself), always keep in eye his re- 
spectability as a man and as a poet, and take no 
measure that, before the world knows .any thing 
about him, would risk his name and character 
being classed with the fools of the times. 

I have. Sir, some experience of })ublishing ; 
and the way in which I would proceed with 
Mr. JMylne's poems, is this : — I would publish, 
in two or three English and Scottish public 
papers, any one of his English poems which 
should, by private judges, be thought the most 
excellent, and mention it at the same time, as 
one of the productions of a Lothiau farmer, of 
respectable chiiracter, lately deceased, whose 
poems his friends had it in idea to i)id)lish soon, 
by subscription, for the sake of his numerous 
family : — not in pity to that family, ]>ut in jus- 
tice to what his friends thiuk the poetic merits 



No. CXIV. 

TO DR. MOORE. 

SIR, Ellhland, 'iM March, 1789. 

The gentleman who will deliver you this is a 
Mr. Nielson, a worthy clergyman in my-beigh- 
bourhood, and a very particular acquaintance of 
mine. As I have troubled him with this packet, 
1 must turn him over to your goodness, to re- 
compense him for it in a way in which he much 
needs your assistance, and where you can effec- 
tually serve him : — IMi\ Nielson is on his way 
for France, to wait on his Grace of Queensberry, 
on some little business of a good deal of impor- 
tance to him, and he wishes for your instruc- 
tions respecting the most eligible mode of tra- 
velling, &c. for him, when he has crossed the 
Channel. I should not have dared to take this 
liberty with you, but that I am told, by those 
who have the honour of your i)ersonal acquaint- 
ance, that to be a poor honest Scotchman is a 
letter of recommendation to you, and that to 
have it in your power to serve such a character, 
gives you much pleasure. 



The enclosed ode is a compliment to the me- 
mory of the late Mrs. , of . You 

probably knew her personally, an honour of 
which I cannot boast; but I spent ray early 
years in her neighbourhood, and among her 
servants and tenants. I know that she was de- 
tested with the most heartfelt cordiality. How- 
ever, in the i)articular part of her conduct which 
roused my poetic wrath, she was much less 
blamcable. In January last, on my road to 
Ayrshire, I had put up at Bailie Wigham's in 
Sanquhar, the only tolerable inn in the place. 
The frost was keen, and the grim evening and 
howling wind were ushering in a night of snow 
and drift. My horse and I were both much 
fatigued with the labours of the day, and just as 
my friend the Bailie and I were bitlding defiance 
to the storm, over a smoking bowl, in wheels 
the funeral pageantry of the late great IMrs. 

, and poor I am forced to brave all the 

horrors of the tempestuous night, and jade my 
horse, my young favourite horse, whom I had 
just christened Pegasus, twelve miles farther • 
on, through the wildest muirs and hills of Ayr- 
shire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The 
powers of poesy and j)rose sink under me, when 
I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to say, 
that when a good fire, at New Cumnock, had 

far recovered my frozen sinews, I sat down 
and wrote the enclosed ode. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



327 



I was at Edinburgh lately, and settled finally 
with Mr. Creech ; and I must own, that, at 
'««t, he has been amicable and fair with me. 



No. CXV. 
TO MR. PETER HILL. 

Ellisland, 2d April, 1789. 
I WILL make no excnses, my dear Bibliopo- 
!us, (God forgive me for murdering language !) 
that I have sat down to write you on this vile 
paper. 



It is economy, Sir ; it is that cardinal virtue, 
prudence ; so I beg you will sit down, and 
either compose or borrow a panegyric. If you 
are going to borrow, apply to 



the glorious cause of Lucre, I will do any thing, 
be any thing— but the horse-leech of private 
oppression, or the vulture of public robbery ! 



But to descend from heroics. 



to compose, or rather to compound, something 
very clever on my remarkable frugality ; that I 
write to one of my most esteemed friends on 
this wretched paper, which was originally in- 
tended for the venal fist of some drunken ex- 
ciseman, to take dirty notes in a miserable vault 
of an ale-cellar. 

O Frugality ! thou mother of ten thousand 
blessings — thou cook of fat beef and dainty 
greens ! — thou manufacturer of warm Shetland 
hose, and comfortabie surtouts ! — thou old 
housewife, darning thy decayed stockings with 
thy ancient spectacles on thy aged nose ; — lead 
me, hand me in thy clutching palsied fist, up 
those heights, and through those thickets, hi- 
therto inaccessible, and impervious to my anxi- 
ous weary feet : — not those Parnassian craggs, 
bleak and baiTen, where the hungry worship- 
pers of fame are, breathless, clambering, hang- 
ing between heaven and hell ; but those glitter- 
ing cliffs of Potosi, where the all-sufficient, all- 
powerful deity. Wealth, holds his immediate 
court of joys and pleasures ; where the sunny 
exposure of plenty, and the hot walls of profu- 
sion, produce those blissful fruits of luxury, 
exotics in thi.' world, and natives of paradise ! — 
Thou withered sybil, my sage conductress, usher 
me into the refulgent, adored presence ! — The 
power, splendid and potent as he now is, was 
once the puling nursling of thy faithful care, 
and tender arms ! Call me thy son, thy cousin, 
thy kinsman, or favourite, and adjure the god, 
by the scenes of his infant years, no longer to 
repulse me as a stranger, or an alien, but to fa- 
vour me with his peculiar countenance and pro- 
tection ! He daily bestows his greatest kindness 
on the undeserving and the worthless — assure 
him, that I bring ample documents of merits 
ous demerits I Pledge yourself lor me, that, for 



I want a Shakspeare ; I want likewise an Eng- 
lish dictionary — Johnson's, I suppose, is best. 
In these and all my prose commissions, the 
cheapest is always the best for me. There is 
a small debt of honour that I owe Mr. Robert 
Cleghorn, in Saughton Mills, my worthy friend, 
and your well-wisher. Please give him, and 
urge him to take it, the first time you see him, 
ten shillings worth of any thing you have to 
sell, and place it to my account. 

The library scheme that I mentioned to you 
is already begun, under the direction of Captain 
Riddel. There is another in emulation of it go- 
ing on at Closeburn, under the auspices of Mr. 
Monteith, of Closeburn, which will be on a 
greater scale than ours. Captain R. gave his 
infant society a great many of his old books, 
else I had written you on that subject ; but, 
one of these days, I shall trouble you with a 
commission for " The Monkland Friendly So- 
ciety" — a copy of T/te Spectator, Mirror, and 
Lounger ; Man of Feeling, Man of the World, 
Gut/irie's Geographical Grammar, with some 
religious pieces, will likely be our first order. 

\Vhen I grow richer, I will write to you on 
gilt post, to make amends for this sheet. At 
present, every guinea has a five-guinea errand 
with 

]My dear Sir, 
Your faithful, poor, but honest friend, 
R. B. 



No. CXVL 
TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 2d April, 1789. 



I Ko sooner hit ou any poetic plan or fancy, 
but 1 wish to seud it to you ; and if knowing 
and reading these give half the pleasure to you, 
that communicating them to you gives to me, 
I am satisfied. 



I have a poetic whim in my head, which I 
at present dedicate, or rather inscribe, to the 
Right Hon. C. J. Fox ; but how long that 
fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the 
first lines I have just rough-sketched, as fol- 
lows : — 



328 



BURNS' WORKS. 



SKETCH OF C. J. FOX. 

How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and imite ; 

How virtue and vice blend their black and their 
white ; 

How genius, th' illustrious father of fiction. 

Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradic- 
tion — 

I sing : if these mortals, the critics, should 
bustle, 

I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle. 

But now for a patron, whose name and whose 

glory. 
At once may illustrate and honour my story. 

Thou first of our oratois, first of our wits ; 
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere 

lucky hits ; 
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so 

strong, 
No man with the half of 'em e'er went far 

wrong ; 
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright, 
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right ; 
A sorry, poor misbegot son of the muses, 
For using thy name ofters fifty excuses. 

Good L — d, what is man ! for as simple he 

looks, 
Do but try to develope his hooks and his crooks ; 
With his depths and his shallows, his good and 

his evil. 
All in all he's a problem must puzzle the devil. 

On his one ruling passion Sir Pope hugely 

labours. 
That like the old Hebrew walking-switch, eats 

up its neighbours : 
IMankind are his &how-box — a friend, would you 

know him ? 
Pull the string, ruling passion, the picture will 

show him. 
Wliat pity, in rearing so beauteous a system, 
One trifling particular, truth, should have miss'd 

him ; 
For, spite of his fine theoretic positions, 
Mankind is u science defies definitions. 

Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe. 
And think luunau nature they truly describe; 
Have you found this, or t'other ? there's more 

in the wind. 
As by one drunken fellow his comrades you'll 

find. 
But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan. 
In the make of that wonderful creature call'd 

I\Ian. 
No two virtues, whatever relation tlipy claim, 
Nor even two different shad(>s of the same, 
Though like as was ever twin brother fo brother 
Possessing the one shaH imply you've the other 



No. cxvn. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

MY DEAR SIR, ElUsland, ith May, 1789. 

Your duty free favour of the 26th April I 
received two days ago : I will not say I peru- 
sed it with pleasure ; that is the cold compli- 
ment of ceremony ; I perused it, Sir, with deli- 
cious satisfaction. — In short, it is such a letter, 
that not you, nor your friend, but the legisla- 
ture, by express proviso in their postage laws, 
should frank. A letter informed with the soul 
of friendship, is such an honour to human na- 
ture, that they should order it free ingress and 
egress to and from their bags, and mails, as an 
encouragement and mark of distinction to su- 
per-eminent virtue. 

I have just put the last hand to a little poem 
which I think will be something to your taste. 
One morning lately as I was out pretty early 
in the fields sowing some grass seeds, I heard 
the burst of a shot from a neighbouring plan- 
tation, and presently a poor little wounded hare 
came crippling by me. You will guess my in- 
dig'^ation at the inhuman fellow who could 
shoot a hare at this season, when they all of 
them have young ones. Indeed there is some- 
thing in that business of destroying, for our 
sport, individuals in the animal creation that 
do not injure us materially, wliich I could never 
reconcile to my ideas of virtue. 

(^See Poetry.) 

Let me know how you like my poem. I am 
doubtful whether it woidd not be an improve- 
ment to keep out the last stanza but one alto- 
gether. 

C is a glorious production of the author 

of man. You, he, and the uoble Colonel of the 
C F are, to me, 

" Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my 
breast." 

I have a good mind to make verses on you all, 
to the tune of *' three good fellows ayont the 
glen." 



On the 20th current I hope to have the ho- 
nour of assuring you, in person, how sincerely 
I am, 



No. CXVIII. 

Thk jjoera, in the preceding letter, had also 
bet n sent by our bard to Dr. Gregorj' for his 
criticism. The following is that gentleman's 
reply. 

FROM DR. GREGORY. 

DEAR SIR, Edinhurgh, 2d June, 1789. 

I TAKK the first leisure hour I could command, 
to thank you for your letter, and the copy of 
verses enclosed in it. As there is real poetic 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



829 



merit, I moan botli fancy, and tenderness, and 
some happy expressions, in them, I think they 
well deser\ e that you should revise them care- 
fully and polish them to the utmost. This I am 
sure you can do if you please, for you have great 
command hoth of expression and of rhymes : and 
you may judge from the two last pieces of Mrs. 
Hunter's poetry, that I gave you, how nmch 
correctness and high polish enhance the value of 
such compositions. As you desire it, I shall, 
with great freedom, give you my most riijoruiis 
criticisms on your verses. I wish you would 
give me another edition of them, much amend- 
ed, and I will send it to IMrs. Hunter, who, I 
am sure, will have much pleasure in reading it. 
Pray, give me likewise for myself, and her too, 
a copy (as much amended as you please) of the 
Water Fowl on Loch Turit, 

The Wounded Hare is a pretty good subject ; 
but the measure, or stanza, you have chosen ■^Rjr 
it, is not a good one ; it does not floio well ; 
and the rhyme of the fourth line is almost lost 
by its distance from the first ; and the two in- 
terposed, close rhymes. If I were you, I would 
put it into a diiferent stanza yet. 

Stanza 1. — The execrations in the first two 
Unes are strong or coarse ; but they may pass. 
" IMurder -aiming" is a bad compound epithet, 
and not very intelligible. " Blood-stained," in 
stanza iii. line 4, has the same fault : Bleeding 
bosom is infinitely better. You have accustom- 
ed yourself to such epithets, and have no notion 
how stiff and quaint they appear to others, and 
how incongruous with poetic fancy, and tender 
sentiments. Suppose Pope had written, " Why 
that blood-stained bosom gored," how would you 
liave liked it ? Form is neither a poetic, nor a 
dignified, nor a plain, common word : it is a 
mere sportsman's word; unsuitable to pathetic 
or serious poetry. 

" Rlangled" is a coarse word. " Innocent, 
in this sense, is a nursery word ; but both may 
pass. 

Stanza 4. — " Who will now provide that life 
a mother only can bestow," will not do at all 
it is not grammar — it is not intelligible. Do 
you mean " provide for that life which the mo 
ther had bestowed and used to provide for ?" 

There was a ridiculous slip of the pen 
*' Feeling" (I suppose) for " Fellow," in the 
title of your copy of verses ; but even fellow 
would be wrong : it is but a colloquial and vul- 
gar word, unsuitable to your sentiments. " Shot 
is improper too. — On seeing a person (or a 
sportsman) wound a hare ; it is needless to add 
with what weapon ; but if you think otherwise, 
you should say, with a fowling-piece. 

Let me see you when you come to town, and 
I will show you some more of Mrs. Hunter's 
poems. * 



* Tt must be admitted, that this criticism is not 
more distinguished by its good sense, than by its free- 
dom from ceremony. It is impossible not to smile »t 
the manner in which the poet may be supposed to have 
reoeived it. In fact it appears, as the sailors sa), to 



No. CXIX. 
TO MR. JAMES HAMILTON, 

GROCER, GLASGOW. 

DEAR SIR, Fllisland, May, 26, 1789. 

I SKND you by John Glover, carrier, the 
above account for Mr. Turnbull, as I suppose 
you know his address. 

I would fain offer, my dear Sir, a word of 
sympathy with your misfortunes ; but it is a 
tender string, and I know not how to touch it. 
It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown sentiments 
on the subject that would give great satisfaction 
to — a breast quite at ease ; but as one observes, 
who was very seldom mistaken in the theory of 
life, " The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and 
a stranger intermeddleth not therewith." 

Among some distressful emergencies that I 
have experienced in life, I have ever laid this 
down as my foundation of comfort — That he 
he u'ho has lived the life of an honest man, has 
by no means lived in vain ! 

With every wish for youl- welfare and future 
success, 

I am, my dear Sir, 

Sincerely yours. 



No. CXX. 
TO WM. CREECH, Esq. 

SIR, JSllisland, May 30, 1789. 

I HAD iutendcd to have troubled you with a 
long letter, but at present the delightful sensa- 
tions of an omnipotent toothach so engross all 
my inner man, as to put it out of my power 
even to write nonsense. — However, as in duty 
botmd, I approach my bookseller with an offer- 
ing in my hand — a few poetic clinches and a 
song : — To expect any other kind of offering 
from the rhyming tribe, would be to know 
them much less than you do. 1 do not pretend 
that there is much merit in these morceaux, but 
I have two reasons for sending them ; primoy 
they are mostly ill-natured, so are in unison with 
my present feelings, while fifty troops of infer- 
nal spirits are driving post from ear to ear along 
my jaw-bones ; and secondly, they are so short, 
that you cannot leave off in the middle, and so 
hurt my pride in the idea that you found any 
work of mine too heavy to get through, 

I have a request to beg of you, and I not on- 
ly beg of you, but conjure you — by all your 
wishes and by all your hopes, that the muse 



havf thrown him quite a-back. In a letter which he 

wratcsoon after, hesays, " Dr. G is agood man, 

bat he crucifies me." — And again, " I believe in the 
iron justice of Dr. (i ; but like the devils, I be- 
lieve and tremble." However, he profiled by these 
criticisms, as the reader will find, by comparing this 
first edition of the poem, with that published after, 
wards. 

63 



330 



BURNS' WORKS. 



will spare the satiric wink in the momeut of 
your foibles ; that slie will warble the song of 
rapture round your hymeneal couch ; and that 
she will shed on your turf the honest tear of 
elegiac gratitude ! grant my request as speedily 
as possible — Send me by the very first fly or 
coach for this place, three copies of the last edi- 
tion of my poems ; which place to my account. 
Now, may the good things of prose, and the 
good things of verse, come among thy hands 
until they be filled with the good things of this 
life! prayeth 

robt. burns. 



No. CXXI. 



TO MR. M'AULEY, 



OF DUMBARTON. 



DEAR SIR, Uh June, 1789. 

Though I am not without my fears respect- 
ing my fate at that grand, universal inquest of 
right and wrong, commonly called 2V/e Last 
Day, yet I trust there is one sin, which that 
arch-vagabond, Satan, who, I understand, is to 
be king's evidence, cannot throw in my teeth 
' — I mean ingratitude. There is a certain pret- 
ty large quantum of kindness for which I re- 
main, and from inability, I fear, must remain 
your debtor ; but though unable to repay the 
debt, I assure you, Sir, I shall ever warmly re- 
member the obligation. It gives me the sin- 
cerest pleasure to hear by my old acquaintance, 
Mr. Kennedy, that you are, in immortal Allan's 
language, " Hale and weel, and living ;" and 
that your charming fixmily are well, and promis- 
ing to be an amiable and respectable addition to 
the company of performers, whom the Great 
Manager of the Drama of Man is bringing into 
action for the succeeding age. 

With respect to my welfare, a subject in 
which you once warmly and efl'ectively interest- 
ed yourself, I am here in my old way, holding 
my plough, marking the growth of my corn, or 
the health of my dairy ; and at times saunter- 
ing by the delightful windings of the Nith, on 
the margin of wliich I have built my humble 
domicile, praying for seasouable weather, or 
holding an intrigue with the Muses ; the only 
gypseys with whom I have now any intercourse. 
As I am entered into the holy state of matrimo- 
ny, I trust my face is turned completely Zion- 
ward ; and as it is a rule with all honest fel- 
lows, to repeat no grievances, I hope that the 
little poetic licences of former days, will of 
course fall under the oblivious influence of stome 
good-natured statute of celestial proscription. 
In my family devotion, which, like a good prcs- 
hyterian, 1 ocoaslonally give to my household 
folks, I am extremely fond of the psalm, *' Let 
not the errors of my youth," &c. and that other, 



" Lo, children are God's heritage," &c. in 
which last JNIrs. Burns, who, by the bye, has a 
glorious " wood-note wild" at either old song 
or psalmody, joins me with the pathos of Han- 
del's Messiah. 



No. cxxn. 

TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE. 

ElUsland, June 8, 1789. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I Ail perfectly ashamed of myself when I 
look at the date of your last. It is not that I 
forget the friend of my heart and the companion 
of my peregrinations ; but I have been con- 
demned to drudgery beyond suflFerance, though 
not, thank God, beyond redemption. I have 
had a collection of poems by a lady put into ray 
hands to prepare them for the press ; which 
horrid task, with sowing my corn with my own 
hand, a parcel of masons, wrights, plaisterers, 
&c. to attend to, roaming on business through 
Ayrshire — all this was against me, and the very 
first dreadful article was of itself too much for 
me. 

loth. I have not had a moment to spare from 
incessant toil since the 8th. Life, my dear Sir, 
is a serious matter. You know by experience 
that a man's individual self is a good deal, but 
believe me, a wife and family of children, when- 
ever you have the honour to be a husband and 
a father, will shew you that your present most 
anxious hours of solicitude are spent on trifles. 
The welfare of those who are very dear to us, 
whose only support, hope and stay we are — this, 
to a generous mind, is another sort of more im- 
portant object of care than any concerns what- 
ever Svhich centre merely in the individual. On 
the other hand, let no young, unmarried, rake- 
helly dog among you, make a song of his pre- 
tended liberty and freedom from care. If the 
relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, 
and friends, be any thing but the visionary fan- 
cies of dreaming metajjhysicians ; if religion, 
virtue, magnanimity, generosity, humanity and 
jui5tice be aught but empty sounds ; then the 
man who may be said to live only for others, 
for the beloved, honourable female whose tender 
faithful embrace endears life, and for the help- 
less little innocents who are to be the men and 
women, the worshippers of his God, the sub- 
jects of his king, and the support, nay the very 
vital existence of his Country, in the ensuing 
age ; — compare such a man with any fellow 
whatever, who, whether he bustle and push in 
business among labourers, clerks, statesmen ; or 
•vhether he roar and rant, and drink and sing 
in taverns — a fellow over whose grave no one 
will braathc a single heigh-ho, except from the 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



331 



cobweb-tie of what is called good followsJiip — 
who has no view nor aim but what terminates 
in himself — if there be any grovelling earthborn 
wretch of our species, a renegado to common 
sense, who would fain believe that the noble 
creature, man, is no better than a sort of fun- 
gus, generated out of nothing, nobody knows 
how, and soon dissipating in nothing, nobody 
knows where ; such a stupid beast, such a 
crawling reptile might balance the foregoing 
unexaggerated comparison, but no one else 
would have the patience. 

Forgive me, my dear Sir, for this long silence. 
To make you ainends, I shall send you soon, 
and more encouraging still, without any postage, 
one or two rhymes of my later manufacture. 



No. CXXIIL 
FROM DR. MOORE. 

DEAR SIR, Clifford Street, lOth JuncinSO. 

I THANK you for the different communica- 
tions you have made me of your occasional pro- 
ductions in manuscript, all of which have merit, 
and some of them merit of a different kind from 
what appears in the poems you have published. 
You ought carefully to preserve all your occa- 
sional productions, to correct and improve them 
at your leisure : and when you can select as 
many of these as will make a volume, publish 
it either at Edinburgh or London, by subscrip- 
tion : On such an occasion, it may be in my 
power, as it is very much in my inclination, to 
be of service to you. 

If I were to offer an opinion, it would be, that 
in your future productions you should abandon 
the Scottish stanza and dialect, and adopt the 
measure and language of modern English poetr)\ 

The stanza which you use in imitation of 
Christ Kirk on the Green, with the tiresome 
repitition of " that day," is fatiguing to English 
ears, and I should think not very agreeable to 
Scottish. 

All the fine satire and humour of your Hull/ 
Fair is lost on tlie English ; yet, without more 
trouble to yourself, you could have conveyed the 
whole to them. The same is true of some of 

your other poems. In your J£pisile to J. S , 

the stanzas from that beginning with this line, 
" This life, so far's I understand," to that which 
ends with, " Shtnt while it grieves," are easy, 
flowing, gaily jdiilosophical, an<l of lloratian ele- 
g<ance — the langua^'e is English, witha /iw Scot- 
tish words, and some of those so harmonious, 
as to add to the beauty : for what poet would 
not prefer gloaming to twilight. 

I imagine, that by carefully keeping, and oc- 
casionally polishing and correcting those verses, 
which the muse dictates, you will, within a year 
or two, have another volume ;is large as the first, 
ready for the press ; and this, without diverting 



you from every proper attention to the study 
and practice of husbandry, iu which 1 under- 
stand you are very learned, and which I fancy 
you will choose to adhere to as a wife, while 
poetry amuses you from time to time as a mis- 
tress. The former, like a prudent wife, must 
not show ill humour, although you retain a 
sneaking kindness to this agreeable gipsy, and 
pay her occasional visits, which in no manner 
alienates your heart from your lawful spouse, but 
tends on the contrary to promote her interest. 

I desired ]Mr. Cadell to write to INIr. Creech 
to send you a copy of Zeluco. This perform- 
ance has had great success here, but I shall be 
glad to have your opinion of it, because I know 
you are above saying what you do not think. 

I beg you will offer my best wishes to my 
very good friend Mrs. Hamilton, who I under- 
stand is your neighbour. If she is as happy as 
I wish her, she is happy enough. JMake my 
compliments also to Mrs. Burns, and believe me 
to be, with sincere esteem, 

Dear Sir, yours, &c. 



No. CXXIV. 



TO MRS. DUNLOP. 



Ellislandy 2\st June^ 1789. 

DEAR MADAM, 

Will you take the effusions, the miserable 
effusions of low spirits, just as they flow from 
their bitter spring. I know not of any particu- 
lar cause for this worst of all my foes besetting 
me, but for some time my soul has been be- 
clouded with a thickening atmosphiere of evil 
imaginations and gloomy presages. 



Mondaij Evening. 
I liave just heard .... give a sermon. 
He is a mati famous for his benevolence, and I 
revere him ; but from such ideas of m;' Creator, 
good Lord deliver me ! Religion, nu honoured 
friend, Ls surely a simple business, as it equally 
concerns tlie ignorant and the harned, the poor 
and the rich. That there is su incomprehensi- 
bly great Being, to whom T owe my existence, 
and tliat he must be iutit>"itely acquainted with 
the operations and pro;,"esH of tiic internal ma- 
chinery, and consetjU'i't outward deportment of 
this creature whic/i he has made ; these are, I 
think, self-evident propositions. That there is 
a real and eternal distinction between virtue and 
vice, and consequently that I am an accountable 
creature ; that from the seeming nature of the 
human mind, as -well as from, the evident im- 
perfection, nay, positive injustice, in the admi- 
nistration of affairs, both in the natural and 
moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene 
of evistcnce beyond the grave j must, I think. 



332 



BURNS' WORKS. 



be allowed by every one who will give himself a 
moment's reflection. I will go farther, and af- 
firm, that from the sublimity, excellence, and 
purity of his doctrine and precepts, unparalleled 
by all the aggregated wisdom and learning of 
many preceding ages, though, to appearance, he 
himself was the obscurest and most illiterate of 
our species ; therefore, Jesus Christ was from 
God. 



Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases 
the happiness of others, this is my criterion of 
goodness ; and whatever injures society at large, 
or any individual in it, this is my measure of 
iniquity. 

Wh^t think you, Madam, of my creed ? I 
trust that I have said nothing that will lessen 
me in the eye of one, whose good opinion I va- 
lue almost next to the approbation of my own 
mind. 



No. CXXV. 
FROM MISS J. L- 



siR, ' Zioudon- House, 12tJi July, 1789. 

Though I have not the happiness of being 
personally acquainted with you, yet amongst the 
jQumber of those who have read and admired 
your publications, may I be permitted to trouble 
you with this. You must know. Sir, I am 
somewhat in love with the Muses, though I 
cannot boast of any favours they have deigned 
to confer upon me as yet ; my situation in life 
has been very much against me as to that. I 
have spent some years in and about Ecclefechan 
(where my parents reside), in the station of a 
servant, and am now come to London-House, 

at present possessed by Mrs. H : she is 

daughter to Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop, whom I 
undeistand you are particularly acquainted with. 
As I Lad the pleasure of perusing your poems, 
I felt a ptrtiallty for the author, which I should 
not have experienced had you been in more dig- 
ni6ed station. I u'rote a few verses of address 
to you, which i did not then think of ever pre- 
senting : but as tu-tune seems to have favoured 
me in this, by briLnring me into a family by 
whom you are well kir,wn and much esteemed, 
and where perhaps I m^y have an opportunity 
of seeing you ; I shall, in ^^opes of your future 
friendship, take the liberty to transcribe them. 



Fair fa* the honest rustic swain, " 
The pride o' a' our Scottish plain : 
Thou gi'es us joy to hear thy strain, 

And note sae sweet ; 
Old Ramsay's shade revived again 

la thee we greet. 



Loved Thalia, that delightfu' muse, 
Seem'd laug shut iip as a recluse ; 
To all she did her aid refuse, 

Since Allan's day : 
'Till Burns arose, then did she chuse 

To grace his lay. 

To hear thy sang all ranks desire, 
Sae weel you strike the dormant lyre ; 
Apollo with poetic fire 

Thy breast does warm j 
And critics silently admire 

Thy art to charm. 

Caesar and Luath weel can speak, 
'Tis pity e'er their gabs should steek. 
But into human nature keek, 

And knots unravel : 
To hear their lectures once a-week, 

Nine miles I'd travel. 

Thy dedication to G. H. 

An unco bonnie hamespun speech, 

Wi' winsome glee the heart can teach 

A better lesson. 
Than servile bards, who fawn and fieech 

Like beggar's messon. 

When slighted love becomes your theme, 
And women's faithless vows you blame ; 
With so much pathos you exclaim. 

In your lament ; 
But glanced by the most frigid dame, 

She would relent. 

The daisy too ye sing wi' skill ; 
And weel ye praise the whisky gill j 
In vain I blunt my feckless quill. 

Your fame to raise ; 
While echo sounds from ilka hill, 

To Burns's praise. 

Did Addison or Pope but hear. 

Or Sam, that critic most severe, 

A ploughboy sing with throat sae clear, 

They in a rage, 
Their works would a' in pieces tear. 

And curse your page. 

Sure Milton's eloquence were faint. 
The beauties of your verse to paint. 
My rude unpolish'd strokes but taint 

Their brilliancy ; 
Th' attempt would doubtless vex a saint, 
And weel may me. 

The task I'll drop with heart sincere, 
To heaven present my humble pray'r, 
That all the blessings mortals share, 

May be by turns. 
Dispensed by an indulgent care 

To Robert Burns. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



333 



Sir, I hope you will pardon my l)oldness in 
this ; my hand trembles while 1 write to you, 
conscious of my unworthiness of what I would 
most earnestly solicit, viz. your favour and 
friendship ; yet hoping you will show yourself 
possessed of as much generosity and good-nature 
as will prevent your exposing what may justly 
be found liable to censure in this measure, I 
shall take the liberty to subscribe myself, 
Sir, 
Your most obedient humble servant, 

J . 

P. S If you would condescend to honour 

me with a few lines from your hand, I would 
take it as a particular favour, and direct to me 
at Loudon-House, near Galshck. 



No. CXXVI. 

FROM MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

MY DEAR SIR, London, bth Aug. 1789. 

Excuse me when I say, that the uncommon 
abilities which you possess, must render your 
correspondence very acceptable to any one. I 
can assure you, I am particularly proud of your 
partiality, and shall endeavour, by eveiy method 
in my power, to merit a continuance of your 
politeness. 



When you can spare a iew moments I should 
be proud of a letter from you, directed for me, 
Gerrard Street, Soho. 



I cannot express ray happiness sufficiently 
at the instauce of your attachment to my late 
inestimable friend, Bob Fergusson, who was 
particularly intimate with myself and relations.* 
While I rcollect with pleasure his extraordinary 
talents, and many amiable qualities, it affords 
me the greatest consolation, that I am honoured 
with the correspondence of his successor in na- 
tional simplicity and genius. That Mr. Burns 
has refined in the art of poetry, must readily be 
admitted ; but notwithstanding many favourable 
representations, I am yet to leain that he in- 
herits his convivial powers. 

There was such a richness of conversation, 
such a plenitude of fancy and attraction in him, 
that when I call the kappy period of our inter- 
course to my memory, 1 feel myself in a state of 
delirium. I was then younger than him by 
eight or ten years ; but his manner was so feli- 
citous, that he enraptured every person around 
him, and infused into the hearts of the young 
and old, the spirit and animation which operated 
on his own mind. 

I am, dear Sir, yours, &c. 



• The erection of a monument to him. 



No. CXXVII. 
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM, 

IN ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

The hurry of a farmer in this particular sea- 
son, and the indolence of a poet at all times and 
seasons, will, I hope, plead my excuse for ne- 
glecting so long to answer your obliging letter 
of the 5th of August. 

That you have done well in quitting your la- 
borious concern in . . . . I do not doubt ; 
the weighty reasons you mention were, I hope, 
very, and deservedly indeed, weighty ones, and 
your health is a matter of the last importance ; 
but whether the remaining proprietors of the 
paper have also done well, is what I much 

doubt. The , so far as I was a 

reader, exhibited such a brilliancy of point, such 
an elegance of paragraph, and such a variety of 
intelligence, that I can hardly conceive it possi- 
ble to continue a daily paper in the same degree 
of excellence ; but if there was a man who had 
abilities e(jual to the task, that man's assistance 
the proprietors have lost. 



When I received your letter I was transcri- 
bing for . . . ., my letter to the magistrates 
of the Canongate, Edinburgh, begging their per- 
mission to place a tomb-stone over poor Fergus- 
son, and their edict in consequence of my peti- 
tion ; but now I shall send them to ... . 
Poor Fergusson ! If there be a life be- 
yond the grave, which I trust there is ; and if 
there be a good God presiding over all nature, 
which I am sure there is ; thou art now enjoj'- 
ing existence in a glorious world, where worth 
of the heart alone is distinction in the man ; 
where riches, deprived of all their pleasure-i)ur- 
chasing powers, return to their native sordid 
matter : where titles and honours are the disre- 
grii lied reveries of an idle dream ; and where 
that heavy virtue, which is the negative conse- 
quence of steady dulness, and those thoughtless, 
though often destructive follies, which are the 
unavoidable aberrations of frail human nature, 
will be thrown into equal oblivion as if thev had 
never been ! 

Adieu, my dear Sir ! so soon as your present 
views and schemes are concentred in an aim, 1 
shall be glad to hear from you : as your wel- 
fare and happiness is by no means a subject in- 
different to 

Yours, &c. 



331. 



BURNS' WORKS. 



No. CXXVIII. 
TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Mlisland, 6th September; 1789. 

DEAR MADAM, 

I HAVE mentioned in my last, my appoint- 
ment to the excise, and the birth of little Frank ; 
who, hy the bye, I trust will be no discredit to 
the honourable name of Wallace, as he has a 
fine manly countenance, and a figure that might 
do ci-edit to a little fellow two months older ; 
and likewise an excellent good temper, though 
when he pleases he has a pipe, only not quite so 
loud as the horn that his immortal namesake 
blew as a signal to take out the pin of Stirling 
bridge. 

I had some time ago an epistle, part poetic, 
and part prosaic, fi'ora your poetess, Mrs. J. 
L ; a very ingenious, but modest compo- 
sition. I should have written her as she re- 
quested, but for the hurry of this new business. 
I have heaid of her and her compositions in this 
country : and I am happy to add, always to the 
honour of her character. The fact is, I know 
not well how to write to her ; I should sit 
down to a sheet of paper that I knew not how 
to stain. I am no daub at fine drawn letter- 
writing ; and except when prompted by friend- 
ship or gratitude, or which happens extremely 
rarely, inspired by the Muse (I know not her 
name), that presides over epistolary writing, 1 
sit down, when necessitated to write, as 1 would 
sit down to beat hemp. 

Some parts of your letter of the SOtli August 
struck me Avith melancholy concern for the state 
of your mind at present. 



Would I could write you a letter of comfort ! I 
would sit down to it with as much pleasure, as 
I would to write an epic poem of my own com- 
position, that shoulil equal the Iliad. Religion, 
mv dear friend, is the true comfort ! A strong 
persuasion in a future state of existence ; a pro- 
position so obviously probable, that, setting re- 
velation aside, every nation and people, so far as 
investigation has reached, for at least near four 
thousand years, have, in some mode or other, 
firmly believed it. In vain would we reason and 
pretend to doubt. I have myself done so to a 
very daring pitch ; but when I reflected, that I 
was opposing .the most ardent wishes, and the 
most darling hopes of good men, and flying in 
the face of all human belief, in all ages, I was 
shocked at my own conduct. 

I know not whether I have ever sent you the 
following lines, or if you have ever seen them ; 
but it is one of my favourite qiiotations, which 
I keep constantly by me in my progress through 
life, in the language of the book of Job, 

" Against the day of buttle and of war." — 

epoken of i-eligion. 



" 'Tis this, my friend, that strfliks ourmoroing 
bright, 
'Tis t?ns that gilds the horror of our night, 
When wealth forsakes us, and when friends 

are few ; 
When friends are faithless, or when foes pur- 
sue ; 
'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the 

smart. 
Disarms affliction or repels his dart : 
Within the breast bids purest raptures rise. 
Bids smiling couscience spread her cloudless 
skies." 

I have been very busy with Zeluco. The 
Doctor is so obliging as to request my opinion 
of it ; and I have been revolving in my mind 
some kind of criticisms on novel writing, but 
it is a depth beyond my research. I shall how- 
ever digest my thoughts on the subject as well 
as I can. Zeluco is a most sterling perfor- 
mance. 

Farewell ! j4. Dleu, le hon JDieu, je vous 
commende ! 



No. CXXIX. 

FROM DR. BLACKLOCK. 

Edinhnrgh, 2ith August, 1789. 
Dear Burns, thou brother of my heart, 
Both for thy virtues and thy art : 
If art it may be call'd in thee, 
Which nature's bounty, large and free, 
With pleasure on thy breast diffuses. 
And warms thy soul with all the Muses. 
Whether to laugh with easy grace. 
Thy numbers move the sage's face, 
Or bid the softer passions rise. 
And ruthless souls with grief surprise, 
'Tis nature's voice distinctly felt. 
Through thee her organ, thus to melt. 

JMost anxiously I wish to know. 
With thee of late how matters go ; 
How keeps thy much-loved Jean her health? 
What jtromises thy farm of wealth ? 
Whether the JMuse persists to smile. 
And all thy anxious cares beguile ? 
Whether bright fancy keeps alive ? 
And how thy darling infants thrive ? 

For me, with grief and sickness spent. 
Since I my journey homeward bent. 
Spirits depiess'd no more I mourn, 
But vigour, life, and health return. 
No more to gloomy thoughts a prey, 
I sleep all night, and live all day ; 
By turns my book and friend enjoy, 
And thus my circling hours employ ; 
Happy while yet these hours remain. 
If Burns could JQJn the cheerful train, 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



335 



"With wonted eeal, sincere and fervent, 
Salute ouce more his humble servant, 

THO. BLACKLOCK. 



No. CXXX. 



TO DR. BLACKLOCK. 

Ellisland 2\st October, 1789. 
Wow, but your letter made me vauutie ! 
And are ye hale, and wecl, and cantie ? 
I kca'd it still your wee bit jauntie, 

Wad bring ye to ; 
Lord send you aye as weel's I want ye, 

And then ye'll do. 

The ill-thief blaw the Heron south ! 
And never drink be near his drouth ! 
He tauld myscl by word o' mouth, 

He'd tak my letter j 
I lippen'd to the chiel in trouth. 

And bade nae better 

But aiblins honest Master Heron, 
Had at the time some dainty fair one, 
To ware his theolojjic care on, 

And holy study ; 
And tired o' sauls to waste his lear on, 

E'eu tried the body. * 

But what d'ye think, my trusty fier, 
I'm turn'd a ganger — Peace be here ! 
Parnassian queens, I fear, I fear, 

Ye'll now disdain me, 
And then my fifty pounds a-year 

Will little gain nic. 

Ye glaiket, gleesome, dainty dauiies, 
Wha by Castaiia's wimplin strcamies, 
Lowp, sing, and lave your pretty limbics. 

Ye ken, ye ken, 
That Strang necessity supreme is 

'JMang sons o' men. 

T hae a wife and twa wee laddies, 

They maun hae brosc and brats o' diiddies : 

Ye ken yoursel my heart right })roud is, 

I needna vaunt, 
But I'll sned besoms — thraw saugh woodies, 

Before they want. 

Lord help me through this warld o' care ! 
I'm weary sick o't late and air I 
Not but 1 hae a richer share 

Than mony ithcrs ; 
But why should ae man better fare, 

And a' men brithers ! 



* Mr. Heton, author of the History of Scotland ; 
.11.1 amonp: various other works, of a resi»ectable life 
:>!' our poel himself. 



Come Firm Resolve take thou the van, 
Thou stalk o' carl-hemp in man ! 
And let us mind, faint heart ne'er waa 

A lady fair : 
Wha does the utmost that he can, 

Will whyles do mair. 

But to conclude my silly rhyme, 

( I'm scant o' verse, and scant o' time), 

To make a happy fire-side clime 

To weans and wife, 
That's the true pathos and sublime 

Of human life. 

My compliments to sister Beckie ; 
And eke the same to honest Lucky ; 
I wat she is a dainty chuckie, 

As e'er tread clay i 
And gratefully my gurle auld cockie, 

I'm your's for aye. 
ROBERT BURN§. 



No. CXXXL 
TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL, Carse. 

SIR, Ellisland, Oct. 16, 1789. 

Bir, with the idea of this important day • at 
Friars Carse, I have watched the elements and 
skies in the full persuasion that they would an- 
nounce it to the astonished world by some pheno- 
mena of terrific portent. — Yesternight until a 
very late hour did I wait with anxious horror, 
for the ai)pearance of some Comet firing half the 
sky ; or aerial armies of sanguinary Scandina- 
vians, darting athwart the startled heavens ra- 
pid as the ragged lightning, and horrid as those 
convulsions of nature that bury nations. 

The elements, however, seem to take the mat- 
ter very quietly : they did not even usher in 
this morning with triple suns and a shower of 
blood, symbolical of the three potent heroes, and 
the mighty claret-shed of the day. — For me, as 
Thomson in his Winter says of the storm — I 
shall " Hear astonished, aud astonished sing," 

The whistle and the man; I sing 
The man that won the whistle, &c. 



No. CXXXU. 
TO THE SAME. 



I WISH from my inmost soul it were in my 
power to give you a more substantial gratifica- 



The (lay on which " tlie Whistle" was contended 



336 



BURNS' WORKS. 



tion and return for all your goodness to the poet, 
tlian transcribing a few of his idle rhymes. — 
However, " an old song," though to a proverb 
an instance of insignihcance, is generally the 
only coin a poet has to pay with. 

If my poems which I have transcribed, and 
mean still to transcribe into your book, were 
equal to the grateful respect and high esteem I 
bear for the gentleman to whom I present them, 
they would be the finest poems in the language. 
— As they are, they will at least be a testimony 
with what sincerity I have the honour to be, 
Sir, 
Your devoted humble servant. 



No. CXXXIIL 
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Ellisland, Nov. 1, 1789. 

MY DEAR FlllEND, 

1 HAD written you long ere now, could I have 
guessed where to find you, for I am sure you 
have more good sense than to waste the precious 
days of vacation time in the dirt of business and 
Edinburgh. — Wherever you are, God bless you, 
and lead you not into temptation, but deliver 
you from evil ! 

I do not know if I have informed you that I 
am now appointed to an excise division, in the 
middle of which my house and farm lie. In this 
I was extremely lucky. Without ever having 
been an expectant, as they call their journeymen 
excisemen, I was directly planted down to all in- 
tents and purposes an officer of excise ; there to 
flourish and bring forth fruits — worthy of re- 
pentance. 

I know not how the word exciseman, or still 
more opprobrious, ganger, will sound in your 
ears. I too have seen the day when my audi- 
tory nerves would have felt very delicately on 
this subject; but a wife and children are things 
which have a wonderful power in blunting these 
kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for 
life, and a provision for widows and orphans, 
you will allow is no bad settlement for a^ poet. 
For the ignominy of the profession, I have the 
encouragement which I once heard a recruiting 
sergeant give to a numerous, if not a respec- 
table audience, in the streets of Kilmaruock. 
— " Gentlemen, for your further and better en- 
couragement, I can assure you that our regiment 
is the most blackguard corps under the crown, 
and consequently with us an honest fellow has 
the surest chance for preferment." 

You need not doubt that I find several very 
unpleasant and disagreeable cirtuuistances in my 
Dusiuess ; but I am tired with and disgusted 
at the language of complaint against the evils of 
life. Human existence in the most favourable 
situations does not abound with pleasures, and 
oas its iHCODvenieaces and ills ; capricious fool- 



ish man mistakes these inconveniences and ills 
as if they were the peculiar property of his par- 
ticular situation ; and hence that eternal fickle- 
ness, that love of change, which has ruined, and 
daily does ruin many a fine fellow, as well as 
many a blockhead ; and is almost, without ex- 
ception, a constant source of disappointment and 
misery. 

I long to hear from you how you go on — not 
so much in business as in life. Are you pretty 
well satisfied with your own exertions, and to- 
lerably at ease in your internal reflections ? 
'Tis much to be a great character as a lawyer, 
but beyond comparison more to be a great cha- 
racter as a man. That you may be both the 
one and the other is the earnest wish, and that 
you will be both is the firm persuasion of, 
My dear Sir, &c. 



No. CXXXIV. 
TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ. OF FINTRY, 

SIR, ^th December, 1789. 

I HAVE a good while had a wish to trouble 
you with a letter, and had certainly done it long 
ere now — but for a humiliating something that 
throws cold water on the resolution, as if one 
should say, " You have found Mr. Graham a 
very powerful and kind friend indeed, and that 
interest he is so kindly taking in your concerns, 
you ought by every tiling in your power to keep 
alive and cherish." Now though, since God 
has thought proper to make one ))0werful and 
another helpless, the connexion of obliger and 
obliged is all fair ; and though my being under 
your patronage is to me highly hor^ourable, yet. 
Sir, allow me to flatter myself, that, as a poet 
and an honest man, you first interested yourself 
in my welfare, and principally as such still, you 
permit me to approach you. 

I have found the excise business go on a great 
deal smoother with me than I expected ; owing; 
a good deal to the generous friendship of Mr. 
Mitcdiell, my collector, and the kind assistance 
of Mr. Find later, my supervisor. I dare to be 
honest, and I fear no labour. Nor do I find 
my hurried life greatly inimical to my corres- 
pondence with the INIuses. Their visits to me, 
indeed, and I believe to most of their acquaint- 
ance, like the visits of good angels, are short and 
far betwee«i ; but I meet them now and then aa 
I jog through the hills of Nithsdale. just as I 
used to do on the banks of Ayr. I take the li- 
berty to enclose you a few bagatelles, all of them 
the productions of my leisure thoughts in my 
excise rides. 

If you know or have ever seen Captain Grose, 
the antiquarian, you will enter Into any humour 
that is in the verses on him. Perhaps you have 
seen them before, as I sent them to a London 
newspaper. Though I dare say you have none 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



S37 



»f tbe solemn-league-and-covenant fire, which 
shone so conspicuous in Lord Geortje Gordon, 
and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet I think you 
must have heard of Dr. M'Gill, one of the cler- 
gymen of Ayr, and his heretical book, God 
help him, poor man ! Thouf^h he is one of the 
worthiest, as well as one of the ablest of the 
whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland,' in 
every sense of that ambiguous term, yet the poor 
Doctor and his numerous family are in immi- 
nent danger of being thrown out to the mercy 
of the winter-winds; The enclosed ballad on 
that business is, I confess, too local, but I 
laughed myself at some conceits iu it, though 
I am convinced in my conscience, that there are 
a good many heavy stanzas in it too. 

The election ballad, as you will see, alludes 
to the present canvass in our string of boroughs, 
I do not believe there will be such a hard run 
match in the whole general election. * 



I am too little a man to have any political 
attachments ; I am deeply indebted to, and 
have the warmest veneration for, individuals 
of both parties ; but a man who has it in his 
power to be the father of a country, and" who 

is a character that one cannot 

speak of with patience. 

Sir J. J. does " what man can do," but yet 
I doubt his fate. 



No. CXXXV. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 13th December, 1789. 
Many thanks, dear Madam, for your sheet- 
ful of Rhymes. Though at present I am below 
the veriest prose, yet from you eve»-y thing 
pleases. I am groaning under the miseries of 
a diseased nervous system ; a system, the state 
of which is most conducive to our happiness — 
or the most productive of our misery. For 
now near three weeks I have been so ill with 
a nervous head-ache, that I have been obliged 
to give up, for a time, my excise books, being 
scarce able to lift my head, much less to ride 
once a-week over ten muir parishes. What is 
Man ! To-day, in the luxuriance of health, ex- 
ulting in the enjoyment of existence ; in a few 
days, perhaps in a few hours, loaded with con- 
scious painful being, counting the tardy pace of 
the lingering moments by the repercussions of 
anguish, and refusing or denied a comforter. 
Day follows night, and night comes after day, 



♦ This alludes to the contest for the borough of 
Dumfries, between the Duke of Queer.sberr/s interest 
and that of Sic James Jc-hniitone. 



only to curse him with life which gives him no 
pleasure ; and yet the awful, dark termination 
of that life, is a something at which he recoils. 

" Tell U3, ye dead j will none of you in pity 

Disclose the secret ■ 

What 'tis you are, and we must shortly he ! 



'tis no matter : 



A little time will make us learn'd as you are." 

Can it be possible, that when I resign this 
frail, feverish being, I shall still find myself in 
conscious existence ! When the last gasp of 
agony has announced, that I am no more to 
those that knew me, and the few who loved 
me : when the cold, stiffened, unconscious, 
ghastly corse is resigned into the earth, to be 
the prey of unsightly reptiles, and to become in 
time a trodden clod, shall I yet be warm in life, 
seeing and seen, enjoying and enjoyed ? Ye ve- 
nerable sages, and holy flamens, i§ there proba- 
bility in your conjectures, truth in your stories 
of another world beyond death ; or arc they all 
alike, baseless .visions, and fabricated fables .' If 
there is another life, it must be only for the just, 
the benevolent, the amiable, and the humane ; 
what a flattering idea, then, is the world to 
come? Would to God I as firmly believed it, 
as I ardently wish it! There I should meet an 
aged parent, now at rest from the many buffet- 
ings of an evil world," against which he so long 
and so bravely struggled. There should I meet 
the friend, the disinterested friend of my early 
life ; the man who rejoiced to see me, because 

he loved me and could serve me Muir ! thy 

weaknesses were the aberrations of human na- 
ture, but thy heart glowed v/ith every thing ge- 
nerous, manly, and noble ; ard if ever emana- 
tion from the All-good Being animated a human 
form, it was thine ! — There should I with 
speechless agony of rapture, again recognize my 
lost, my ever dear Mary ! whose bosom was 
fraught with truth, honour, constancy, and love. 

My INIary, dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of heavenly rest ? 
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 

Jesus Christ, thou ami ablest of characters ! 
I trust thou art no impostor, and that thy re- 
velation of blissful scenes of existence beyond 
death and the grave, is not one of the many 
impositions which time after time have been 
palmed on credulous mankind. I trust that in 
thee, " shall all' the famdies of the earth be 
blessed," by being yet connected together in a 
better world, where every tie that bound lieart 
to heart, in this state of existence, shall be, far 
beyond our present conceptions, more endearing. 

I am a good deal inclined to think with those 
ho maintain, that what are called nervous af- 
fections are in fact diseases of the mind. I can- 
not reason, I c;:nnot think ; and but to you I 
'^-culd net venters tc write any thiug above &a 
U 



339 



BURNS' WORKS. 



order to a cobbler. You have felt too much of 
the ills of life not to sympathize with a diseased 
wretch, who has impaired more than half of any 
faculties he possessed. Your goodness will ex- 
cuse this distracted scrawl, which the writer 
dare scarcely read, and which he would throw 
into the fire, were he able to write any thing 
better, or indeed any thing at all. 

Rumour told me something of a son of yours 
who was returned fiom the East or West In- 
dies. If you have gotten news of James or An- 
thony, it was cruel in you not to let me know ; 
as I promise you, on the sincerity of a man, 
who is weary of one world and anxious about 
another, that scarce any thing could give me so 
much pleasure as to hear of any good thing be- 
falling my honoured friend. 

If you have a minute's leisure, take up your 
pen in pity to le pauvre miserable. R. B. 



No. CXXXVI. 
TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. 



The following circumstance has, I believe, 
been omitted in the statistical account, trans- 
mitted to you, of the parish of Dunscore, in 
Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you, be- 
cause it is new and may be useful. How far it 
is deserving of a place in your patriotic publica- 
tion, you are the best judge. 

To store the minds of the lower classes with 
useful knowledge, is certainly of very great im- 
portance, both to them as individuals, and to 
society at large. Giving them a turn for read- 
ing and reflection, is giving them a source of 
innocent and laudable amusement ; and besides 
raises them to a more dignified degree in the 
scale of rationality. Impressed with this idea, 
a gentleman in this parish, Robert Riddel, Esq. 
of Glenriddel, set on foot a species of circulat- 
ing liberary, on a plan so simple as to be prac- 
ticable in any corner of the country ; and so 
useful, as to deserve the notice of every country 
gentleman, who thinks the improvement of that 
part of his own species, whom chance has 
thrown into the humble walks of the peasant 
and the artizan, a matter worthy of his atten- 
tion. 

Mr. Riddel got a number of his own tenants, 
and farming neighbours, to form themselves 
into a society for the purpose of having a library 
among themselves. They entered into a legal 
engagement to abide by it for three years j with 
a saving clause or two, in case of removal to a 
distance, or of death. Each member, at his 
entry, paid five shillings, and at each of their 
meetings, which were held every fourth Satur- 
day, sixpence more. With their entry-money, 
and the credit which they took on the faith of 
theii future funds, they laid in a tolerable stock 



of books at the commencement. What authotJ 
they were to purchase, was always decided by 
the majority. At every meeting, all the books, 
under certain fines and forfeitures, by way of 
penalty, were to be produced ; and the mem- 
bers had their choice of the volumes in rotation. 
He whose name stood, for that night, first on- 
the list, had his choice of what volume he pleas- 
ed in the whole collection ; the second had his 
choice after the first ; the third after the second, 
and so on to the last. At next meeting, he who 
had been first on the list at the preceding meet- 
ing, was last at this ; he who had been second 
was first ; and so on through the whole three 
years. At the expiration of the engagement, 
the books were sold by auction, but only among 
the members themselves : and each man had his 
share of the common stock, in money or in 
books, as he chose to be a purchaser or not. 

At the breaking up of this little society, 
which was formed under Mr. Riddel's patron- 
age, what with benefactions of books from hino, 
and what with their own purchases, they had 
collected together upwards of one hundred and 
fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed, that a 
good deal of trash would be bought. Among 
the books, however, of this little library, were 
Slair^s Sermons, Robertsons History of Scot- 
land, Hume's History of the Stuarts, the Spec- 
tator, Idler, AdveJiturer, Mirror, JLounger, 

Observer, Man of Feeling, Man of the Worlds 

Chrysal, Don Quixotte, Joseph Andreivs, S^c. 

A peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, 
is certainly a much superior being to his neigh- 
bour, who perhaps stalks beside his team, very 
little removed, except in shape, from the brute 

he drives. 

Wishing your patriotic exertions their sa 

much merited success, I am, 
Sir, 

Your humble servant, 

A PEASANT.* 



* The above is extracted from the third volume of 
Sir John Sinclair's Statistics, p. 598. — It was enclosed 
to Sir John by Mr. Riddel himself in the following 
letter, also printed there : — 

" Sir John, 

'« I enclose you a letter, written by Mr. Burns as an 
addition to the account of Dunscore parish. It eon- 
tains an account of a small library which he was so 
good (at my desire), as to set on foot, in the barony of 
Monkland, or Friar's Carse, in this parish. As its 
utility has been felt, particularly among the younger 
class of people, I think, that if a similar plan were es- 
tablished, in the different parishes of Scotland, it 
would tend greatly to the speedy improvement of the 
tenantry, trades people, and work people. Mr. Burns 
was so good as to take the whole charge of this small 
concern. He was treasurer, librarian, and censor to 
this little society, who will long have a grateful sense 
of his public spirit and exertions for their improve- 
ment and information. 

'• I have the honour to be. Sir John, 
" Yours most sincerely, 

•• ROBERT RIDDEL.- 

To Sir John Sinclair, 
of Ulbster, Bart. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



339 



LETTERS, 1790. 

No. CXXXTVII. 
TO MR. GILBERT BURNS. 

Ellisland, Wth January, 1790. 

DEAR BROTHER, 

I MEAN to take advantage of tlie frank, though 
I have not in my present frame of mind much 
appetite for exertion in writing. ]My nerves 
are in a . . . . state. I feel that horrid 
hypochondria pervading every atom of both 
body and soul. This farm has undone my en- 
joyment of myself. It is a ruinous affair on all 
hands. But let it go to . . . ! I'll fight it 
out and be off with it. 

We have gotten a set of very decent players 
here just now. I have seen them an evening 
or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me 
by the manager of the company, a Mr. Suther- 
land, who is a man of apparent worth. On 
New-year-day evening I gave him the following 
prologue, which he spouted to his audience with 
applause. 

PROLOGUE. 
No song nor dance I bring from yon great 
city, 
That queens it o'er our taste — the more's the 

pity: 
Though, by the bye, abroad why will you roam ? 
Good sense and taste are natives here at home ; 
But not for panegyric I appear, 
I come to wish you all a good new year ! 
Old Father Time deputes me here before ye, 
Not for to preach, but tell his simple story : 
The sage grave ancient cough'd, and bade me 

say, 
*' You're one year older this important day," 
If wiser too — he hinted some snggestlon, 
But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the ques- 
tion ; 
And with a would-be-roguish leer and wink, • 
He bade me on you press this one word — 

*' THINK !" 

Ye sprightly youths, quite flush with hope 
and spirit. 
Who think to storm the world by dint of merit, 
To you the dotard has a deal to say. 
In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way ! 
He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle, 
That the first blow is ever half the battle ; 
That though some by the skirt may try to snatch 

him, 
Yet by the forelock is the hold to catch him, 
That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing. 
You may do miracles by persevering. 

Last, though not least in love, ye youthful fair, 
Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar care ! 
To you old Bald-pate smooths his wrinkled 

brow. 
And humbly begs you'll mind the important — 

now ! 



To crown your happiness, he asks your leave, 
And offers, bliss to give and to receive. 

For our sincere, though haply weak endea- 
vours. 
With grateful pride we own your many favours: 
And howsoe'er our tongues may ill reveal it, 
Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it. 



I can no more.— If once I was clear of this 
. . . farm, I should respire more at ease. 



No. CXXXVIIL 

FROM WILLIAM BURNS, THE POET'S 
BROTHER. 

DEAR BROTHER, Newcastle, 24'th Jan. 1790. 

I WROTE you about six weeks ago, and I have 
expected to hear from you every post since, but 
I suppose your excise business which you hinted 
at in your last, has prevented you from writing. 
By the bye, when and how have you got into 
the excise ; and what division have you got 
about Dumfries? These questions please an- 
swer in your next, if more important matter do 
not occur. But iu the mean time let me have 
the letter to John Murdoch, which Gilbert wrote 
me you meant to send ; enclose it in your's to 
me, and let me have them as soon as possible, 
for I intend to sail for London, in a fortnight, 
or three weeks at farthest. 

You promised me when I was intending to 
go to Edinburgh, to write me some instructions 
about behaviour in companies rather above my 
station, to which I might be eventually intro- 
duced. As I may be introduced into such com- 
panies at Murdoch's, or on his account, when I 
go to London, I wish you would write me some 
such instructions now : I never had more need 
of them, fur having spent little of my time ia 
company of any sort since I came to Newcastle, 
I have almost forgot the common civilities of 
life. To these instructions pray add some of a 
moral kind, for though (either through the 
strength of early impressions, or the frigidity of 
my constitution), I have hitherto withstood the 
temptation to those vices, to which young fel- 
lows of my station and time of life are so much 
addicted, yet, I do not know if my virtue will 
be able to withstand the more powerful tempta- 
tions of the metropolis : yet, thjough God's as- 
sistance and your instructions, I hope to wea- 
ther the storm. 

Give the compliments of the season and my 
love to my sisters, and all the rest of your fa- 
mily. Tell Gilbert, the first time you write 
him, that I am well, and that I will write him 
either when I sail or when I arrive at London. 
I am, &c. 

W. B. 



340 



BURNS* WORKS. 



No. cxxxix. 
TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

ElUsland, 2bt7i January, 1790. 

It has been owing to unremitting hurry of 
business that I have not written to you, Rla- 
dani, long ere now. My health is gre^itly bet- 
ter, and I now begin once more to share in sa- 
tisfaction and enjoyment with the rest of my 
fellow-creatures. 

Many thanks, my much esteemed friend, for 
your kind letters ; but why will you make me 
run the risk of being contemptible and merce- 
nary in my own eyes I When I pique myself 
on my independent spirit, I hope it is neither 
poetic license, nor poetic rant ; and I am so 
flattered with the honour you have done me, 
in making me your compeer in friendship and 
friendly correspondence^ that I cannot without 
pain, and a degree of mortification, be reminded 
of the real inequality between our situations. 

Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear 
Madam, in the good news of Anthony. Not 
only your anxiety about his fate, but my own 
esteem for such a noble, warm-hearted, manly 
young fellow, in the little I had of his acquaint- 
ance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes. 

Falconer, the unfortunate author of the Ship- 
wreck, which you so much admire, is no more. 
After weathering the dreadful catastrophe he so 
feelingly describes in his poem, and after wea- 
thering many hard gales of fortune, he went to 
the bottom with the Aurora frigate ! I forget 
what part of Scotland had the honour of giving 
him birth, but he was the son of obscurity and 
misfortune.* He was one of those daring ad- 
venturous spirits, which Scotland beyond any 
other country is remarkable for producing. 
Little does the fond mother think, as she hangs 
delighted over the sweet little leech at her bo- 
som, where the poor fellow may hereafter wan- 
der, and what may be his fate. 1 remember a 
stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which, not- 
withstanding its rude simplicity, speaks feelingly 
to the heart . — 



* Falconer was in early life a seaboy, to use a word 
of Shakspeare, on board a man-of-war, in which capa- 
city he attracted the notice of Campbell, the author of 
the satire nn Dr. Johnson, entitled Lexiphanes, then 
purser of the ship, ramphell took him as his servant, 
and delighted m giving him instruction; and when 
Falconer afterwards acquired celebrity, boasted of him 
as his scholar. The editor had this infiimation from 
a surgeon of a man-of-war, in 1777. who knew botli 
Campbell and Falconer, and who himself perished soon 
after by shipwreck, on the coast of America. 

Thoiigh the death of Falconer happened so latelv as 
17';0 or 1771, yet in the biography prefixed by Dr. .An- 
derson to his works, in the complete edition of the 
Pacts of Great Britain, it is said, " Of the family, 
birth-place, and education of William Falconer, there 
are no memor'als." On the authority aireadv given, 
it may be mentioned, that he was a native of one of 
the towns on the coHst of Fife, and that his parents, 
who had suffered some mi-fortunes, re.-; oved to one 
of the sea-ports of Kngland. where thev bo'h died, 
soon after, of an cpidnriic fever, leaving poor Fal.. 
coner, then a boy, forlorn and destitute. In conse- 
quence of which he entered on board a man-of-war. 
These last circumstances are however less certain. — 
Cromek. 



" Little did my mother think,' 
That day she cradled me, 
What land I was to travel in, 
Or what death I should die." 

Old Scottish songs are, you know, a favour- 
ite study and pursuit of mine ; and now T am 
on .that subject, allow me to give you two 
stanzas of another old simple ballad, which I 
am sure will please you. The catastrophe of 
the piece is a poor ruined female, lametiting 
her fate. She concludes with this pathetic 
wish : 

*' O that my father had ne'er on me smiled ; 
O that my mother had ne'er to me sung ! 
O that my cradle had never been rock'd ; 
But that I had died when I was young ! 

that the grave it were my bed ; 

My blankets were my winding sheet ; 
The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a* ; 
And O sae sound as I should sleep 1" 

1 do not remember in all my reading to have 
met with any thing more truly the language of 
misery, than the exclamation in the last line. 
Misery is like love ; to speak its language truly, 
the author must have felt it. 

I am every day expecting the doctor to give 
your little god-son* the small-pox. They are 
rife in the country, and I tremble for his fate. 
By the way, I cannot help congratulating you 
on his looks and spirit. Eveiy person who 
sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest, 
handsomest child he has ever seen. I am my- 
self delighted with the manly swell of his little 
chest, and a certain miniature dignity in the 
carriage of his head, and glance of his fine black 
eye. which promise the undaunted gallantry of 
an independent mind. 

I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but 
time forbids. I promise you poetry until you 
are tired of it, next time I have the honour of 
assuring you how truly I am, &c. 



No. CXL. 



FROIM MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

2Sth January^ 1 790. 
In some instances it is reckoned unpardonable 
to quote any one's own words ; but the value I 
have for your friendship, nothing can more truly 
or more elegantly express, than 

" Time but the impression stronger makes. 
As streams their channels deeper wear." 

Having written to you twice without having 



• The bard's second son, Francis. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



34: 



ireard from you, I am apt to think my letters 
tave miscarried. My conjecture is only framed 
upon the chapter of accidents turning up against 
me, as it too often does, in the trivial, and I 
may with truth add, the more important affairs 
of life : but I shall continue occasionally to in- 
form you what is going on among the circle of 
jour fi lends in these parts. In these days of 
merriment, I have frequently heard your name 
prochiimed at the jovial board — under the roof 
<if our hospitable friend at Stenhouse JMills, there 
were no 

" Lingering moments number'd with care." 

I saw your Address to the New-year in the 
Dumfries Journal. Of your productions I shall 
say nothing, but my acquaintance allege that 
when your name is mentioned, which every man 
of celebrity must know often happens, I am the 
champion, the IVIendoza, against all snarling cri- 
tics, and narrow-minded reptiles, of whom a few 
on this planet do crawl. 

With best compliments to your wife, and her 
black -eyed sister, I remain, yours, &c. 



No. CXLI. 
TO MR. PETER HILL. 

Ellisland, Feb. 2. 1790. 

No ! I will not say one word about apolo- 
gies or excuses for not writing — I am a poor, 
rascally ganger, condemned to gallop at least 
200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds 
and yeasty barrel*, and where can I find time 
to write to, or importance to interest any body? 
The upbraidings of my conscience, nay the up- 
braidings of my wife, have persecuted me on 

your account these two or three months past 

I wish to God I was a great man, that my cor- 
respondence might throw light upon you, to 
let the world see what you really are ; and then 
I would make your fortune, without putting my 
hand in my pocket for you, which, like all other 
great men, I suppose I would avoid as much as 
possible. What are you doing, and how are you 
doing ? Have you lately seen any of my few 
friends? What is become of the borough 
REFORM, or how is the fate of my poor name- 
sake r.I .demoiselle Burns decided ? O man ! 
but for thee and thy selfish appetites, and dis- 
honest artifices, that beauteous form, and that 
once innocent and still ingenuous mind might 
have shoiie conspicuous and lovely in the faith- 
ful wife, and the affectionate mother ; and shall 
the unfortunate sacrifice to thy pleasures have 
no cl.iinj on thy humanity ! 

I saw lately in a Review, some extracts from 
a uew poem, called The Village Curate ; send 
it me. I want likewise a cheap copy of The 
World. Mr. Afmstroug, the young poet, who 



does me the honour to mention me so kindly ia 
his works, please give him my best thanks for 
the copy of his book— I shall write him, my first 
leisure hour. I like his poetry much, but I 
think his style in prose quite astonishing. 



Your book came safe, and I am going to trou- 
ble you with farther commissions. I call it 
troubling you — because I want only, books ; 
the cheapest way, the best ; so you may have 
to hunt for. them in the evening auctions. I 
want Smollett's Works, for the sake of his in- 
comparable humour. I have already Roderick 
Random, and Humphrey Clinker — Peregrine 
Pickle, Launcelot Greaves, and Frederick, Count 
Fathom, I still want ; but as I said, the veriest 
ordinary copies will serve me. I am nice only 
in the appearance of my poets. I forget the 
price of Cowper's Poems, but, I believe, I must 
have them. I saw the other day, proposals for 
a publication, entitled, *' Banks's new and cora- 
plet Christian's Family Bible," printed for C. 
Cooke, Paternostcr-row, London. — He promises 
at least, to give in the work, I think it is three 
hundred and odd engravings, to which he has 
put the names of the first artists in London.* — 
You will know the character of the performance, 
as some numbers of it are published ; and if it 
is really what it pretends to be, set me down 
as a subscriber, aud send me the published 
numbers. 

Let me hear from you, your first leisure mi- 
nute, and trust mc, you shall in Future have no 
reason to complain of my silence. The dazzling 
perplexity of novelty will dissipate and leave me 
to pursue my course in the quiet path of me- 
thodical routine. 



No. CXLIL 

TO MR. W. NICOLL. 

Mr DEAR SIR, Ellisland, Feb. 9, 1790. 

That d-mned mare of yours is dead. I 
would freely have given her price to have saved 



* Perhaps no set of men more effectual I v avail them- 
selves of the easy credulity of the public,' th:m a cor. 
tain description of Paternoster-row booksellers. Three 
hundred and odd engravings !— and by [.hojirst artists 
in London, too! No wonder that Bums was dazzled 
by the splendour of the promise. It is no unusual 
thing for this class of impostors to illustrate the Holij 
Scriptures by plates originally engraved for the His- 
tor;/ of England, and I have acttially seen subjects de- 
signed by our celebrated artist Stolhaid, from C'arUan 
Harlowe and the Xovelist's Magazine, converted, with 
ineredible dexterity, by these Bookselling-Dreslaws, 
into Scriptural eynbellishments ! One of these venders 
of ' Family Bibles' lately called on me, to consult me 
professionally, about a folio engraving he brought 
with him. — It represented Mons. Biii'FoN', seated, 
contcmi)lating various groups of animals that sur- 
rounded him : He merely wished, he said, to be in 
formed, whether by uncloathing the Naturalist, and 



342 



BURNS' WORKS, 



her : she has vexed me beyond description. In- 
debted as I was to your goodness beyond what 
I can ever repay, I eagerly grasped at your of- 
fer to have the mare with me. That I might 
at least shew my readiness in wishing to be 
grateful, I took every care of her in my power. 
She was never crossed for riding above half a 
score of times by me or in my keeping. I drew 
her in the plough, one of three, for one poor 
week. I refused fifty-five shillings for her, which 
was the highest bode I could squeeze for her. 
I fed her up and had her in fine order for Dum- 
fries fair ; when four or five days before the fair, 
she was seized with an unaccountable disorder 
in the sinews, or somewhere in the bones of the 
neck ; v.'ith a weakness or total want of power 
in her fillets, and in short the whole vertebrae 
of her spine seemed to be diseased and unhinged, 
and in eight and forty hours, in spite of the two 
best farriers in the country, hhe died and be 
d-mned to her ! The furriers said that she had 
been quite strained in the fillets beyond cure be- 
fore you had bought her, and that the poor de- 
vil, though she might keep a little flesh, had 
been jaded and quite worn out with fatigue and 
oppression. While she was with me, she was 
under my own eye, and I assure you, my much 
valued friend, every thing was done for her that 
could be done ; and the accident has vexed me 
to the heart. In fact I could not pluck up spi- 
rits to write you, on account of the unfortunate 
business. 

There is little new in this country. Our the- 
atrical company, of which you must have heard, 
leave us in a week. Their merit and character 
are indeed very great, both on the stage and in 
private life ; not a worthless creature among 
them ; and their encouragement has been ac- 
cordingly. Their usual run is from eighteen 
to twenty-five pounds a night ; seldom less than 
the one, and the house will hold no more than 
the other. There have been repeated instances 
of sending away six, and eight, and ten pounds 
in a night for want of room. A new theatre is 
to be built by subscription ; the first stone is to 
be laid on Friday first to come.* Three hun- 
dred guineas have been raised by thirty subscri- 
bers, and thirty more might have been got if 
wanted. The manager, INIr. Sutherland, was 
introduced to me by a friend from Ayr ; and a 
worthier or cleverer fellow I have rarely met 
with. Some of our clergy have slipt in by 
stealth now and then ; but they have got up a 
farce of their own. You must have heard how 
the Rev. Mr. Lawson of Khkmahoe, seconded 
by the Rev. Mr. Kirkpatrick of Dunscore, 
and the rest of that faction, have accused in for- 
mal process, the unfortunate and Rev. Mr. He- 
ron of Kirkgunzeon, that in ordaining Mr. 
Nelson to the cure of souls in Kirkbean, he, 
the said Heron, feloniously and treasonably 



giving him a rather more resolute look, the plate could 
not, at a trifling expense, be made to pass for ♦• Da- 
niel IN THE Lions' den !" — Cromek. 

* On Friday first to come — a Scotticism. 



bound the said Nelson to the confession of faitlj, 
so far as it was agreeable to reason and the 
word of God! 

JMrs. B. begs to be remembered most grate- 
fully to you. Little Bobby and Frank are 
charmingly well and healthy. I am jaded to 
death with fatigue. For these two or three 
months, on an average, I have not ridden less 
than two hundred miles per week. I have 
done little in the poetic way. I have given Mr. 
Sutherland two Prologues ; (me of which was 
delivered last week. I have likewise strung 
four or five barbarous stanzas, to the tune of 
Chevy Chase, by way of Elegy on your poor un- 
fortunate mare, beginning, — 



" Peg Nicholson ^ 
(^see p. 77.) 



a good Bay-mare,'*— 



My best compliments to Mrs. Nicoll, and lit- 
tle Neddy, and all the family, I hope Ned is 
a good scholar, and will come out to gather nuts 
and apples with me next harvest. 



No. CXLIII. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Mlisland, 13th February, 1790. 
I BEG your pardon, my dear and much valued 
friend, for writing to you on this very unfashion- 
able, unsightly sheet — 

" ]My poverty but not my will consents." 

But to make amends, since of modish post I 
have none, except one poor widowed half sheet 
of gilt, which lies in my drawer among my ple- 
beian foolscap pages, like the widow of a man 
of fashion, whom that unpollte scoundrel. Ne- 
cessity, has driven from Burgundy and Pine- 
apple, to a dish of Bohea, with the scandal- 
bearing help-mate of a village priest ; or a glass 
of whisky-toddy, with the ruby-nosed yoke- 
fellow of a foot-padding exciseman — I make a 
vow to enclose this sheet-full of epistolary frag- 
ments in that my only scrap of gilt-paper. 

I am indeed your unworthy debtor for three 
friendly letters. I ought to have written to you 
long ere now, but it is a literal fact, I have 
scarcely a spare moment. It is not that I ^vill 
not write to you ; Miss Burnet is not more dear 
to her guardian angel, nor his grace the Duke 

of to the powers of , than my 

friend Cunningham to me. It is not that I 
cannot write to you ; should you doubt it, take 
the following fragment which was intended for 
you some time ago, and be convinced that I can 
antithesize sentiment, and circtimvoiute periods, 
as well as any coiner of phrase in the regions of 
philology. J 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



34S 



MY DEAR CUNKINGHAM, December, 1789. 

Where are you ? And what are you doing ? 
Can you be that son of levity, who takes up a 
friendship as he takes up a fashion ; or are you, 
like some other of the worthiest fellows in the 
world, the victim of indolence, laden with fetters 
of ever-increasing weight. 

What strange beings we are ! Since we have 
a portion of conscious existence, equally capable 
of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and rapture, or 
of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it 
is surely worthy of an inquiry, whether there 
be not such a thing as a science of life ; whether 
method, economy, and fertility of expedients be 
not applicable to enjoyment ; and whether there 
be not a want of dexterity in pleasure, which 
renders our little scantling of happiness still 
less ; and a profuseness, an intoxication in bliss 
which leads to satiety, disgust, and self-abhor- 
rence. There is not a doubt but that health, 
talents, character, decent competency, respecta- 
ble friends, are real substantial blessings ; and 
yet do we not daily see those who enjoy many 
or all of these good things, contrive, notwith- 
standing, to be as unhappy as others to whose 
lot few of them have fallen. I believe one great 
source of this mistake or misconduct is owing 
to a certain stimulus, with us called ambition, 
which goads us up the hill of life, not as we 
ascend other eminences, for the laudable curio- 
sity of viewing an extended landscape, but ra- 
ther for the dishonest pride of looking down on 
others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly dimi- 
nutive, in humble stations, &c. &c. 



Sunday, \ith February, 1790. 
God help me ! I am now obliged to join 

•' Night to day, and Sunday to the week." 

If there be any truth in the orthodox faith of 

these churches, I am past redemption, 

and what is worse, • to all eternity. I 

am deeply read in Boston s Fourfold State, 
* Marshall on Sanctijication, Gutherie's Trial of 
a Saving Interest, ^c. but " There is no balm 
in Gilead, there is no physician there," for me; 
so I shall e' en turn Arminian, and trust to 
" Sincere, though imperfect obedience." 



Tuesday, IQth. 
Luckily for me I was prevented from the 
discussion of the knotty point at which I had 
just made a full stop. All my fears and cares 
are of this world : if there is another, an honest 
man has nothing to fear from it. I hate a man 
that wishes to be a Deist, but I fear, every fair, 
unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a 
sceptic. It is not that there are any very stag- 
gering arguments against the immortality of 



man ; but like electricity, phlogiston, &c. the 
subject is so involved in darkness, that we want 
data to go upon. One thing frightens me much ; 
that we are to live for ever, seems too good news 
to be true. That we are to enter into a new 
scene of existence, ^vhere, exempt from want 
and pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our friends 
without satiety or separation — how much should 
I be indebted to any one who could fully assure 
me that this was certain ! 



My time is once more expired. I will write 
to Mr. Cleghorn soon. God bless him and all 
his concerns ! And may all the powers that pre- 
side over conviviality and friendship, be present 
with all their kindest influence, when the bearer 
of this, Mr. Syme, and you meet ! I wish I 
could also make one. — I think we should be . 

Finally, brethren, farewell ! Whatsoever 
things are lovely, whatsoever things are gentle, 
whatsoever things are charitable, whatsoever 
things are kind, think on these things, and 
think on ROBERT BURNS. 



No. CXLIV. 
TO MR. PETER HILL. 

Ell island, 2d March, 1790. 

At a late meeting of the Monkland Friendly 
Society, it was resolved to augment their libra- 
ry by the following books, which you are to 
send us as soon as possible : — The Mirror, The 
Lounger, Man of Feeling, Man of the World, 
(these for my own sake I wish to have by the 
first carrier) Knox's History of the Reforma- 
tion ; Jiae's History of the Hebelliun in 1 7 15; 
any good History of the Hebellion in \lib ; 
A Display of the Secession Act and Testimo- 
ny, by IMr. Gibb ; Hervcy's Meditations ; Se~ 
veridge's Thoughts ; and another copy of Wat- 
son's Body of Divinity. 

I wrote to Mr. A. INIasterton three or four 
months ago, to pay some money he owed me 
into your hands, and lately I wrote to you to 
the same purpose, but I have beard from nei- 
ther one nor other of you. 

In addition to the books I commissioned in 
my last, I want very much, An Index to the 
Excise Laics, or an abridgment of all the Sta- 
tutes now in force, relative to the Excise, by 
Jellinger Symons : I want three copies of this 
book ; if it is now to be had, cheap or dear, get 
it for me. An honest country neighbour of 
mine wants, too, A Family Bible, the larger 
the better, but second-handed, for he does not 
choose to give above ten shillings for the book. 
I want likewise for myself, as you can pick 
them up, second-handed or cheap, copies of 



344 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Otway's Dramatic Works, Ben Jonson's, 
Dry<]erCs,Congreve s, Wycherhy's, Vanbrugh's, 
Cibber's, or any Dramatic Works of the more 
modern — Machlin, Garrick, Foote, Colman, or 
Sheridan. A good copy too of Moliere, in 
French, I much want. Any other good dra- 
matic authors in that language I want also ; 
but comic authors chiefly, though I should wish 
to have Racine, Corneille, and Voltaire too. 
I am in no hurry for all, or -any of these, but if 
you accidentally meet with them very cheap, 
get them for me. 

And now, to quit the dry walk of business, 
how do you do, my dear friend ? and how is 
Mrs. Hill ? I trust if now and then not so ele- 
gantly handsome, at least as amiable, and sings 
as divinely as ever. My good-wife too has a 
charming " wood-note wild j" now could we 
four 



I am out of all patience with this vile world, 
for one thing. Mankind are by nature benevo- 
'ent creatures ; except in a few scoundrelly in- 
stances, I do not think that avarice of the good 
things we chance to have, is born with us ; but 
we are placed here amid so much nakedness, and 
hunger, and poverty, and want, that we are un- 
der a cursed necessity of studying selfishness, in 
order that wc may exist ! Still there are, in 
every age, a few souls, that all the wants and 
woes of life cannot debase to selfishness, or even 
to the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. 
If ever I am in danger of vanity, it is when I 
contemplate myself on this side of ray di>posi- 
tion and character. God knows I am no saint; 
I have a whole host of follies and sins to answer 
for ; but if I could, and I believe I do it as fur 
as I can, I would wipe away all tears from all 
eyes. Adieu ! 



No. CXLV. 

FROM WILLIAM BURNS, THE POET'S 
BROTHER. 

London, 2\st Marcli, 1790. 

DEAR BROTHER, 

I HAVE been here three weeks come Tuesday, 
and would have written you sooner, but was not 
settled in a place of work. — We were ten days 
on our passage from Shields ; the weather being 
calm I was not sick, except one day when it 
blew pretty hard. I got into work the Friday 
after I came to town, I wrought there only 
eight days, their job being done. I got work 
again in a shop in the Strand, the next day af- 
ter I left my former master. It is only a tem- 
porary place, but I expect to be settled soon in 
a shop to my mind, although it will be a harder 
task than I at first imagined, for there are such 



swarms of fresh hands just come from ^ne coiia^ 
try that the town is quite overstocked, and ex- 
cept one is a particularly good workman, (which 
you know I am not, nor I am afraid ever will 
be), it is hard to get a place : However, I don't 
yet despair to bring up my lee-way, and shall 
endeavour if possible to sail within three or four 
points of the wind. The encouragement here is 
not what I expected, wages being very low in 
proportion to the expense of living, but yet, if I 
can only lay by the money that is spent by 
others in my situation in dissipation and riot, I 
expect. soon to return you the money I borrowed 
of you and live comfortably besides. 

In the mean time I wish you would send up 
all my best linen shirts to London, which you 
may easily do by sending them to some of your 
Edinburgh friends, to be shipped from Leith. 
Some of them are too little ; don't send any but 
what are good, and I wish one of my sisters 
could find as much time as to trim my shirts at 
the breast, for there is no such thing to be seen 
here as a plain shirt, even for wearing, which is 
what I want these for. I mean to get one or 
two new shirts here for Sundays, but I assure 
you that linen here is a very expensive article. 
I am going to write to Gilbert to send me an 
Ayrshire cheese ; if he can spare it he will send 
it to you, and you may send it with the shirts, 
but I expect to hear from you before that tftne. 
The cheese I could get here ; but I will have a 
pride in eating Ayrshire cheese in London, and 
the expense of sending it will be little, as you 
are sending the shirts any how. 

I write this by J. Stevenson, in his lodgings, 
while he is wiiting to Gilbert. He is well and 
hearty, which is a blessing to me as well as to 
him : We were at Covent Garden chapel this 
forenoon, to hear the Calf preach ; he is grown 
very fat, and is as boisterous as ever.* There 
is a whole colony of Kilmarnock people here, so 
we don't want for acquaintance. 

Remember me to my sisters and all the fa- 
mily. I shall give you all the observations I 
have made on Loudon in my next, when 1 shall 
hav*; seen more of it. 

I am, dear Brother^ yours, &c. 

W. B. 



No. CXLVL 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

EWsland, \Oth Jpril, 1790. 
I HAVE just now, my ever-honoured friend, 
enjoyed a very high luxury, in reading a paper 
of the Lounger, You know my national pre- 
judices. I had often read and admired the Spec- 
tator, Adventurer, Rambler, and World; but 
still with a certain regret, that they were so 



• Vide Poetical Address to the Calf. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



345 



thoroughly and entirely English. Alas ! have I 
often said to myself, what are all the boasted ad- 
vantages which my country reaps from the 
Union, that can counterbalance the annihilation 
of her independence, and even her very name ! 
I often repeat that couplet of my favourite poet, 
Goldsmith — 

" States of native liberty possest, 

Though very poor, may yet be very blest." 

Nothing can reconcile me to the common 
terms, " English ambassador, English court," 
&c. And I am out of all patience to see that 
equivocal character, Hastings, impeached by 
" the Commons of England." Tell me, my 
friend, is this weak prejudice ? I believe in my 
conscience such ideas, as, " my country ; her 
independence ; her honour ; the illustrious 
names that mark the history of my native 
land," &c. — I believe these, among your men of 
the tvorld — men who in fact guide for the most 
part and govern our world, are looked on as so 
many modifications of wrongheadedness. They 
know the use of bawling out such terms, to 
rouse or lead the rabble ; but for their own 
private use, with almost all the able statesmen 
that ever existed, or now exist, when they talk 
of right and wrong, they only mean proper and 
improper ; and their measure of conduct is, not 
what they ought, but what they dare. For 
the truth of this I shall not ransack the history 
of nations, but appeal to one of the ablest judges 
of men, and himself one of the ablest men that 
ever lived — the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield. 
In fact, a man who could thoroughly controul 
his vices whenever they interfered with his in- 
terest, and who could completely put on the ap- 
pearance of every virtue as often as it suited his 
purposes, is, on the Stanhopian plan, the perfect 
man ; a man to lead nations. But are great 
abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished 
without a blemish, the standard of human ex- 
cellence ? This is certainly the staunch opinion 
of men of the world ; but I call on honour, vir- 
tue, and worth, to give the Stygian doctrine a 
loud negative ! However, this must be allowed, 
that, if you abstract from man the idea of an 
existence beyond the grave, then, the true mea- 
sure of human conduct is proper and improper: 
Virtue and vice, as dispositions of the heart, are 
in that case, of scarcely the import and value to 
the world at large, as harmony and discord in 
the modifications of sound ; and a delicate sense 
of honour, like a nice ear for music, though it 
may sometimes give the possessor an ecstasy un- 
known to the coarser organs of the herd, yet, 
considering the harsh gratings, and inharmonic 
jars, in this ill-tuned state of being, it is odds 
but the individual would be as happy, and cer- 
tainly would be as much respected by the true 
judges of society, as it would then stand, with- 
out either a good ear or a good heart. 

You must know I have just met with the 
Mirror and Lounger for the first time, and I 



am quite in raptures with them : I should be 
glad to have your opinion of some of the papers. 
The one I have just read. Lounger, No. 61, 
has cost me more honest tears than any thing 
I have read of a long time, M'Kenzie has been 
called the Addisou of the Scots, and in my 
opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the com- 
parison. If he has not Addison's exquisite hu- 
mour, he as certainly outdoes him iu the teader 
and the pathetic. His Man of Feeling (but I 
am not counsel-learned in the laws of criticism), 
I estimate as the first performance in its kind I 
ever saw. From what books, moral or even 
pious, will the susceptible young mind receive 
impressions more congenial to humanity and 
kindness, generosity and benevolence ; in short, 
more of all that ennobles the soul to herself, or 
endears her to others — than from the simple af- 
fecting tale of poor Harley. 

Still, with all my admiration of M'Kenzie's 
writings, I do not know if they are the fittest 
reading for a young man who is about to set 
out, as the phrase is, to make his way into life. 
Do not you think, Madam, that among the few 
favoured of Heaven in the structure of their 
minds (for such there certainly are), there may 
be a purity, a tenderness, a dignity, an elegance 
of soul, which are of no use, nay, in some de- 
gree, absolutety disqualifying for the truly im- 
portant business of making a man's way into 
life. If I am not much mistaken, my gallant 

young friend, A , is very much under 

these disqualificatiuns ; and for the young fe- 
males of a family I could mention, well may 
they excite parental solicitude, for I, a common 
acquaintance, or as my vanity will have it, an 
humble friend, have often trembled for a turn of 
mind which may render them eminently happy 
— or peculiarly miserable ! 

I have been manufacturing some verses late- 
ly ; but as I have got the most hurried season 
of excise business over, I hope to have more lei- 
sure to transcribe any thing that may show how- 
much I have the honour to be, Madam, yours> 
&c. 



No. CXLVII. 
FROM am. CUNNINGHAM. 

Edinburgh, 25th May, 1790. 

MY DEAR BURNS, 

I Aji much indebted to you ioc your last 
friendly, elegant epistle, and it shall make a 
part of the vanity of my compoiition, to retain 
your correspondence through life. It was re- 
markable your introducing the name of Miss 
Burnet, at a time wbtJn she was in such ill 
health ; and I am sure it will grieve your gen- 
tle heart, to hear of her being in the last stage 
of a consumption. Alas ! that so much beauty, 
innocence, and virtue, should be nipt in the 
65 * 



346 



BURNS' WORKS. 



bud. Hers was the smile of cheerfulness — of 
sensibility, not of allurement ; and her elegauce 
of manners corresponded with the purity and 
elevation of her mind. 

How does your friendly muse ? I am sure 
she still retains her affection for you, and that 
you have many of her favours in your posses- 
sion, which I have not seen. I weary much to 
hear from you. 



I beseech you do not forget me. 



I most sincerely hope ail your coucerus in 
life prosper, and that your roof -tree enjoys the 
blessing of good health. All your iViecfls here 
are well, among whom, and not the least, is your 
acquaintance, Cleghoru. As for myself, I am 

well, as far as will let a 

man be ; but with these I am happy. 



When you meet with my very agreeable friend 
J. Syme, give him for me a hearty squeeze, and 
bid, God bless him. 

Is there any probability of your being soon in 
Edinbursrh ? 



No. CXLVIII. 
TO DR. aiOORE. 
Dumfries, Excise- Office, Uth July, 1790. 

SIR, 

Coming into town this morning, to attend 
my duty in this office, it being collection-day, I 
met with a gentleman who tells me he is on his 
way to London ; so I take the opportunity cf 
writing to you, as franking is at present uuder 
a temporary death. I shall have some snatches 
of leisure through the day, amid our horrid bu- 
siness and bustle, and I shall improve them as 
well as I can j but let my letter bs as stupid as 
, as miscellaneous as a news- 
paper, as short as a hungry grace-betort-meat, 
or as long as a law-paper iu the Douglas' cause ; 
as ill-spelt as country John's billet-doux, or as 
unsightly a scrawl as Betty Byremucker's an- 
swer to it I. I hope, considering circumstances, 
you will forgxve it ; and as it will put you to no 
expense of postage, I shall have the less reflec- 
tion about it. 

I am sadly ungr&teful in not returning you 
my thanks for your nKist valuable present, Ze- 
luco. In fact, you are in N)nie degree blaraeable 
for my neglect. You were pleased to express a j 
wish for ray opinion of the work, which so flat- 
tered me, that nothing less would serve my 
over-weening fancy, than a formal criticism on 



the book. In fact, I have gravely planned a 
comparative view of you, Fielding, Richardson, 
and Smollett, in your difl'erent qualities and me- 
rits as novel-writers. This, I own, betrays my 
ridiculous vanity, and I may probably never 
biing the business to bear ; but I am fond of 
the spirit young Elihu shows in the book of 
Job — " And I said, I will also declare my opi- 
nion." 1 have quite disfigured my copy of the 
book with my annotations. I never take it up 
without at the same time taking my pencil, 
and marking with asterisks, parenthesis, &c. 
wherever I meet with an original thought, a 
nervous remark on life and manners, a remark- 
ably well-turned period, or a character sketched 
with uncommon precirion. 

Though I shall hardly thitdc of fairly writing 
out my " Comparative View," I shall certainly 
trouble you with my remarks, such as they are. 
I have just received from my gentleman, that 
horrid summons in the book of Revelations — 
" That time shall be no more !" 

The little collection of sonnets have some 
charming poetry in them. If indeed I am in- 
debted to the fair author for the book, and not, 
as I rather suspect, to a celebrated author of 
the other sex, I should certainly ha^e written to 
the lady, with my grateful acknowledgments, 
and my own ideas of the comparative excellence 
of her pieces. I would do this last, not from 
any vanity of thinking that my remarks could 
be of much consequence to ]\Irs. Smith, but 
merely fioni my own feelings as an author, do- 
ing as I would be done by. 



No. CXLIX. 
TO MR. MURDOCH, 

TEACHER OF FRENCH, LONDON. 

MY DEAR SIR, ElUsland, July 16, 1790. 

I r.ECEivED a letter from you a long time 
ago, but unfortunately as it was in the time of 
my peregrijations and journeyings through Scot- 
laud, I mislaid or lost it, and by consequence 
your direction along with it. luckily my good 
star brought me acquainted with Mr. Kennedy, 
who, I understand, is an acquaintance of yours : 
and by his means and mediation I hope to re- 
place that link which my unfortunate negli- 
gence had so unluckily broke In the chain of 
our correspondence. I was the more vexed at 
the vile accid ?nt, as my brother William, a jour- 
neyman saddler, has been for some time in Lon- 
don ; and wished above all things for your di- 
rection, that he might have paid his respects to 
his father's friend. 

His last address he sent me was, " Wm. 
Burns, at Mr. Barber's, Saddler, No. 181, 
Strand." I write him by Mr. Kennedy, but 
neglected to ask him for your address j so, if you 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



347 



find a spare lialf minute, please let my brother 
know by a card where and when he will find 
you, and the poor fellow will joyfully wait on 
you, as one of the few surviving friends of the 
man whose name, and Christian name too, he 
has tlie honour to bear. 

The next letter I write you shall be a long 
one. I have much to tell you of " hair-breadth 
'scapes in th' imminent deadly breach," with 
all the eventful history of a life, the early years 
of which owed so much to your kind tutorage ; 
but this at an hour of leisure. My kindest 
compliments to Mrs. Murdoch and family. 
I am ever, my dear Sir, 

Your obliged friend.* 



* 'J his letter was communicated to the Editor by a 
gentleman to whose liberal advice and information he 
is much indebted, Mr. John Murdoch, the early in- 
structor of the poet ; accompanied by the following 
interesting note : — 

London, Hart-Street, Bloomsbury, 2Sth Dec. 1807. 

DEAR SIR, 

The following letter, which I lately found among 
my papers, I copy for your perusal, partly because it 
is Burns's, partly because it makes honourable men- 
tion of my rational Christian friiiul, his father; and 
likewise because it is rather flattering to myself. I 
glory in no one thing so much as an intimacy with 
good men ; — the fiiendsliip of otliers reflects no ho^ 
nour. When I recollect the pleasure, (and I hope be- 
nefit), I received from the conversation of William 
Burns, especially when on the Lord's day we walked 
together for about two miles, to the house of prayer, | 
there publicly to adore and praise the Giver of ail j 
good, 1 entertain an ardent hope, that together we shall , 
" renew the glorious theme in distant worlds," with j 
powers more adequate to the mighty subject, the ex- 
i;bi;ra\t benificence of the great creator. 
But to the letter:— 

FROM MR. MURDOCH TO THE BARD, 

UIVING HIM AN ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH OF 
HIS BROTHER WILLIAM. 

Hart-Street, B'ooinsburii-Sqvnre, London, 

M V DE A R F R 1 1'. N D, Sept. iith, 1 790. 

VoURS of the 16th of July, I received on the 26th, 
in th.' afternoon, ])er favour of my friend Mr. Ken- 
nedv, and at the same time was informed that your 
brother was ill. Being engaged in business till' late 
that evening, I set out next morning to see him, and 
had thought of three or four medical gentlemen of my 
acquaintani-e, to one or other of whom I might apply 
for advice, provided it should be necessary. But when 
I went to Mr. Barber's, to my great astonishment and 
heart-felt grief, I found that my young friend had, on 
Saturday, bill an everlasting farewell to all sublunary 
thinffs.— It wa-; about a fortnight before that he had 
found me out. by Mr. Stevenson's accidentally calling 
at my shop to buv something. We had only one in- 
terview, and tliat wr>s highly entertaining to me in se- 
veral respects. He mentioned some instruction I had 
given him when very young, to whi'h l\e said lie 
owed, in a great measure, tht! philanthropy he posses- 

scti. He also tr>ok notice of my exhorting you all, 

v»hen I wrote, about eight vears ago. to the man who, 
of all mankind that I ever knew, stood highest in my 
esteem, " not to let go your integrity." — You may ea- 
sily conceive that such conversation was both pleasing 
and encouragii.g to me : 1 antiei\)ated a deal of r.itio- 
nal happiness from future conversations.— Vain are our 
expectations and hones They are so almost always— 
Perhaps, (nay, certainly), for our good. Were it not 
for dir-appointed hopes we could hardly spend a thought 
on another sUite of existence, or be in any degree re- 
conciled to the qintting of th.s. 

I know of no one source of consolation to those who 
have lost young relatives, equal to that of th^ir being 
of a good disposition, and of a promising character. 



No. CL. 
TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

DEAR MADAM, Stll AugUSt, 1790. 

After a long day's toil, plague, and care, I 
sit down to write to you. Ask me not why I 
have delayed it so long? It was owing to hurry, 
indolence, and fifty other things ; in short, to 
any thing — but forgetfulness of la plus aimahle 
de son sexe. By the bye, you are indebted your 
best courtesy to me for this last compliment ; 
as I pay it from sincere conviction of its truth 
— a quality rather rare in compliments of these 
grinning, bowing, scraping times. 

Well, I hope writing to ymt, will ease a little 
my troubled soul. Sorely has it been bruised 
to-day ! A ci-devant friend of mine, and an in- 
timate acqaintance of yours, has given my feel- 
ings a wound that I perceive will gangrene dan- 
gerously ere it cure. He has wounded my pride ! 



Be assured, my dear friend, that I cordially sympa- 
thize with you all, and particularly with Mrs. W. 
Burns, who is undoubtedly one of the most tender and 
affectionate mothers that ever lived. Remember me 
to her in the most friendly manner, when you see her, 
or write. — Please present my best compliments to Mrs. 
R. Burns, and to your brother and sisters. — There is 
no occasion for me to exhort you to filial duty, and 
to use your united endeavours in rendering the even- 
ing of life as comfortable as possible to a mother, who 
has dedicated so great a part of it in promoting your 
temporal and spiritual welfare. 

Your letter to Dr. Moore, I delivered at his house, 
and shall most likely know your opinion of Zeleuco, 
the first time I meet with him. 1 wish and hope for 
a long letter. Be particular about your mother's 
health. I hope she is too much a Christian to be af- 
flicted above measure, or to sorrow as those who have 
no hope. 

One of the most pleasing hopes I have is to visit 
you all ; but I am commonly disappointed in what I 
most ardently wish for. 

I am, dear Sir, 

Yours sincerely, 

JOHN MURDOCH. 

I promised myself a deal of happiness in the con- 
ver.sation of my dear young friend; but my promises 
of this nature generally prove fallacious. Two visits 
were the utmost that I received. At one of them, 
however, he rcjicatcd a lesson which I had given him 
about twenty years before, when he was a mere child, 
concerning the pity and tenderness due to animals. 
To that lesson, (which it seems was brought to the le- 
vel of his capacity), he declared himself indebted for 
almost all the philanthropy he posse.ssed. 

Let not parents and teachers imagine that it is need- 
less to talk seriously lo children. They are sooner fit 
to be reasoned with than is generally thought. Strong 
and indelible impressions are to be made before the 
mind be agitated and ruffled by the numerous train of 
distracting cares and unruly |)assions, whereby it is 
frequently rendered almost unsusceptible of the prin- 
ciples and precepts of rational veligion and sound mo- 
rality. 

But I iind myself digressing again. Poor William ! 
then in the bloom and vigour of youth, caught a pu- 
trid fever, and, in a few days, as real chief mourner, 
I followed his remains to the land of forgetfulness. 

JOHN MURDOCH. 



Chome». 



348 



BURNS' WORKS. 



No. CLI. 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

JElUsland, 8th August, 1790. 

Forgive me my once dear, and ever dear 
friend, my seeming negligence. You cannot 
sit down, and fancy the busy life I lead. 

I laid down my goose feather to beat my 
brains for an apt simile, and had some thoughts 
of a country grannara at a family christening : 
a bride on the market-day before her marriage ; 



a tavern-keeper at an election dinner ; &c. &c. 
. — but the resemblance that hits my fancy best 
is, that blackguard miscreant, Satan, who roams 
about like a roaring lion, seeking, searching 
whom he may devour. However, tossed about 
as I am, if I choose (and who would not choose) 
to bind down with the crampets of attention, 
the brazen foundation of integrity, I may rear 
up the superstructure of Independence, and from 
its daring turrets, bid defiance to the storms of 
fate. And is not this a " consummation de- 
voutly to be wished ?" 

" Thy spirit, Independence, let me share ; 

Lord of the lion-heart, and eagle -eye ! 
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare. 

Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky ! " 

Are not these noble verses ? They are the in- 
troduction of Smollett^s Ode to Independence : 
If you have not seen the poem, I will send it to 
you. How wretched is the man that hangs on 
by the favours of the great. To shrink from 
every dignity of man, at the approach of a lord- 
ly piece of self-consequence, who, amid all his 
tinsel glitter, and stately hauteur, is but a crea- 
ture formed as thou art — and perhaps not so 
well formed as thou art — came into the world 
a puling infant as thou didst, and must go out 
of it as all men must, a naked corse*. 



No. CLII. 

FROM DR. BLACKLOCK. 

Edinburgh, 1st September, 1790. 
How does my dear friend ? — much I languish 

to hear, 
His fortune, relations, and all that are dear ; 



» The preceding letter explains the feelings under 
which this was written. The strain of indignant in- 
vective goes on some time longer in the style which 
our bard was too apt to indulge, and of which the 
reader has already seen somuch. 



With love of the Muses so strongly still smitten, 

I meant this epistle in verse to have written ; 

Bu*- from age ?ad infirm.itv, indolence flows, 

And this, much I fear, will restore me to prose. 

Anon to my business I wish to proceed, 

Dr. Anderson guides and provokes me to speed, 

A man of integrity, genius and worth, 

Who soon a performance intends to set forth ; 

A work miscellaneous, extensive, and free, 

Which will weekly appear, by the name of the 

Bee. 
Of this from himself I enclose you a plan, 
And hope you will give what assistance you can. 
Entangled with business, and haunted with care, 
In which more or less human nature must share, 
Some moments of leisure the Muses will claim, 
A sacrifice due to amusement and fame. 
The Bee, which sucks honey from ev'ry gay 

bloom, 
With some rays of your genius her work may 

illume, 
Whilst the flower whence her honey spontane- 
ously flows, 
As fragrantly smells, and as vig'rously grows. 

Now with kind gratulations 'tis time to con- 
clude, 

And add, your promotion is here understood ; 

Thus free from the servile employ of excise, Sir, 

We hope soon to hear you commence supervisor ; 

You then more at leisure, and free from control, 

May indulge the strong passion that reigns in 
your soul. 

But I, feeble I, must to nature give way ; 

Devoted cold death's and longevity's prey. 

From verses tho' languid my thoughts must un- 
bend, 

Tho' still I remain your affectionate friend, 
THO. BLACKLOCK. 



No. CLIIL 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER 

FROM MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Edinburgh, 14<A October, 1790. 

I LATELY received a letter from our friend 

B , — v/hat a charming fellow lost to 

society — born to great expectations — with su- 
perior abilities, a pure heart and untainted mo- 
rals, his fate in life has been hard indeed still 

I am persuaded he is happy ; not like the gal- 
lant, the gay Lothario, but in the simplicity of 
rural enjoyment, unmixed with regret at the re- 
membrance of " the days of other years." 

I saw Mr. Dunbar put, under the cover of 
your newspaper, Mr. Wood's Poem on Thom- 
son. This poem has suggested an idea to me 
which you alone are capable to execute : — a 
song adapted to each season of the year. The 
task is difficult, but the theme is charming: 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



349 



should you succeed, I will undertake to get new 
music worthy of the subject. What a tine field 
for your imagination, and who is there alive can 
draw so many beauties from Nature and pastoral 
imagery as yourself? It is, by the way, sur- 
prising that there does not exist, so far as I 
know, a proper song for each season. We have 
songs on hunting, fishing, skaiting, and one au- 
tumnal song, Harvest Home. As your muse 
is neither spavied nor rusty, you may mount 
the hill of Parnassus, aud return with a sonnet 
in your pocket for every season. For my sug- 
gestions, if I be rude, correct me ; if imperti- 
nent, chastise me ; if presuming, despise me. 
But if you blend all my weaknesses, and pound 
out one grain of insincerity, then am I not 
thy 

Faithful friend, &c. 



No. CLIV. 
TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

November, 1790. 

" As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good 
news from a far country." 

Fate has long owed me a letter of good news 
from you, in return for the many tidings of sor- 
row which I have received. In this instance 
I most cordially obey the apostle — " Rejoice 
with them that do rejoice" — for me to sing for 
joy is no new thing ; but to preach for joy, as I 
have done in the commencement of this epistle, 
is a pitch of extravagant rapture to which I ne- 
ver rose before. 

I read your letter — I literally jumped for joy 
— How could such a mercurial creature as a poet, 
lumpishly keep his seat on the receipt of the 
best news from his best friend. I seized my 
gilt-headed Wangee rod, an instrument indis- 
pensably necessary, in my left hand, in the mo- 
ment of inspiration and rapture ; and stride, 
stride — quick and quicker — out skipt I among 
the broomy banks of Nith, to muse over my 
joy by retail. To keep within the bounds of 
prose was impossible. Mrs. Little's is a more 
elegant, but not a more sincere compliment to 
the sweet little fellow than T, extempore al- 
most, poured out to him in the following verses. 

(See the poem — On the Birth of a Posthumous 
Child.) 



I am much flattered by your approbation of 
my Tarn o' Shanter, which you express in your 
former letter, though, by the bye, you load me 
in that said letter with accusations heavy and 
many ; to all which I plead not guilty ! Your 
book is, I hear, on the road to reach me. As 
to printing of poetry, when you prepare it for 
the press, you have only to spell it right, and 



place the capital letters properly ; as to the 
punctuation, the printers do that themselves. 

I have a copy of Tatn o' Shanter ready to 
send you by the first opportunity : it is too 
heavy to send by post. 

I heard of Mr. Corbet lately. He, in con- 
sequence of your recommendation, is most zeal- 
ous to serve me. Please favour me soon with 
an account of your good folks ; if Mrs. H. 
is recovering, and the young gentleman doing 
well. 



No. CLV. 
TO CRAUFORD TAIT, Esq. Edinburgh. 

DEAR SIR, Ellisland, Oct. 15, 1790. 

Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance 
the bearer, Mr. Wm. Duncan, a friend of mine, 
whom I have long known and long loved. His 
father, whose only son he is, has a decent little 
property in Ayrshire, and has bred the young 
man to the law, in which department he comes 
up an adventurer to your good town. I shall 
give you my friend's character in two words : 
as to his head, he has talents enough, and more 
than enough for common life ; as to his heart, 
when nature had kneaded the kindly clay that 
composes it, she said, " I can no more." 

You, ray good Sir, were born under kinder 
stars ; but your fraternal sympathy, 1 well know, 
can enter into the feelings of the young man, 
who goes into life with the laudable ambition to 
do something, and to he something among his 
fellow creatures ; but whom the consciousness 
of friendless obscurity presses to the earth, and 
wounds to the soul ! 

Even the fairest of his virtues are against 
him. That independent spirit, and that inge- 
nuous modesty, qualities inseparable from a no- 
ble mind, are, with the million, circumstances 
not a little disqualifying. What pleasure is in 
the power of the fortunate and the happv, by 
their notice and patronage, to brighten the 
countenance and glad the heart of such depress- 
ed youth ! I am not so angry with mankind 
for their deaf economy of the purse: — The 
goods of this world cannot be divided, without 
being lessened — but why be a niggard of that 
which bestows bliss on a fellow-creature, yet 
takes nothing from our own means of enjoy- 
ment ? We wrap oui-selves up in the cloak of 
our own better-fortune, and turn away our 
eyes, lest the wants and woes of our bjother- 
mortals should disturb the selfish apathy of our 
souls ! 

I am the worst hand in the world at asking a 
favour. That indirect address, that insinuating 
implication, which, without any positive re- 
quest, plainly expresses your wish, is a talent 
not to be acquired at a plough-tail. Tell me 
then, for you can, in what periphrasis of Ian- 



350 



BURNS' WORKS. 



guage, in what circumvolution of phrase, I shall 
envelope yet not conceal this plain story — 
" My dear Mr. Tait, my friend Mr, Duncan, 
whom I have the pleasure of introducing to you, 
is a young lad of your own profession, and a 
gentleman of much modesty and great worth. 
Perhaps it may be in your power to assist him 
in the, to him, important consideration of get- 
ting a place ; but at all events, your notice and 
acquaintance will be a very great acquisition to 
him ; and I dare pledge myself that he will ne- 
ver disgrace your favour." 

You may possibly be surprised, Sir, at such 
a letter from me ; 'tis, I own, in the usual way 
of calculating these matters, more than our ac- 
quaintance entitles me to ; but my answer is 
short : Of all the men at your time of life, whom 
I knew in Edinburgh, you are the most acces- 
sible on the side on whirh I have assailed you. 
You are very much altered indeed from what 
you were when I knew you, if generosity point 
the path you will not tread, or humanity call to 
you in vain. 

As to myself, a being to whose interest I be- 
lieve you are still a well-wisher ; I am here, 
breathing at all times, thinking sometimes, and 
rhyming now and then. Every situation has its 
share of the cares and pains of life, and my situ- 
ation I am persuaded has a full ordiuary allow- 
ance of its pleasures and enjoyments. 

My best compliments to your father and Miss 
Tait. If you have an opportunity, please re- 
member me in the solenm league and covenant 
of friendship to JMrs. Lewis Hay. I am a 
wretch for not writing her; but I am so hack- 
neyed with self-accusation in that way, that 
my conscience lies in my bosom with scarce the 
sensibility of an oyster in its shell. Where is 
Lady M'Kenzie? wherever she is, God bless 
her ! I likewise beg leave to trouble you with 
compliments to Mr. Wm. Hamilton ; Mrs. Ha- 
milton and family ; and Mrs. Chalmers, when 
you are in that country. Should you meet 
with Miss Nimmo, please remember me kindly 
to her. 



No, CLVL 



TO 



DEAR SIR, 

Whethsr in the way of my trade, I can be 
of auv service to the Rev. Doctor,* is I fear very 
doubtful. Ajdx's shield cousisted, I think, of 
seven bull -hides and a plate of bras;.;, which al- 
together set Hector's utmost force at defiance. 
Alas ! I am not a Hector, and the worthy Doc- 
tor's foes are as securely armed as Ajax was. 
Ignorance, superstition, bigotry, stupidity, ma- 
levolence, self-conceit, envy — cU strongly bound 
in a massy frame of brazen impudence. Good 
God, Sir ! to such a shield, humour is the peck 



• Dr. M'Gill of Ayr. 



of a sparrow, and satire the pop-gun of a school- 
boy. Creation-disgracing scehrats such as they, 
God only can mend, and the devil only can pu- 
nish. In the comprehending way of Caligula, I 
wish they had all but one neck. I feel impotent 
as a child to the ardour of my wishes ! O for a 
withering curse to blast the germins of their 
wicked machinations. O for a poisonous torna- 
do, winged from the torrid zone of Tartarus, to 
sweep the spreading crop of their villainous con- 
trivances to the lowest hell ! 



LETTERS, 1791. 

No. CLVII. 
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

* ElUbland, 23c? January, 1791. 

Many happy returns of the season to you, 
my dear friend ! As many of the good things of 
this life, as is consistent with the usual mixture 
of good and evil in the cup of Being ! 

I have just finished a poem, which you will 
receive enclosed. It is my first essay in the way 
of tales. 

I have, these several months, been hammer- 
ing at an elegy on the amiable and accomplish- 
ed JMiss Burnet. I have got, and can get, no 
farther than the following fragment, on which, 
please give me your strictures. In all kinds of 
poetic composition, I set great store by your 
opinion ; but in sentimental verses, in the poe- 
try of the heart, no Roman Catholic ever set 
more value on the infallibility of the Holy Fa- 
ther than I do on yours. 

I mean the introductory couplets as text ver- 



ELEGY 

ON THE LATE MISS BURNET OF MONBODDO. 

Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize. 
As Burnet, lovely from her native skies ; 
Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow, 
As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low. 

Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget ; 
In richest ore the brightest jewel set ! 
In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown, 
As by his noblest work the Godhead best is 
known. 

In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves ; 

Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore; 
Ye woodland choir that chaunt your idle loves, 

Ye cease to charm ; Eliza is no more. 

Ye heathy wastes inmix'd with reedy fens, 
Ye mossy sti*eams, with sedge and rushes 
stor'd, 

Ye rugged cliffs o'erhanging dreary glens. 
To you I fly, ye with my soul accord. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



351 



Princes whose cumb'rous pride was all their 
woith, 

Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail ; 
And thou, sweet excellence ! forsake our earth, 

And not a muse in honest grief bewail. 

We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride, 
And virtue's light that beams beyond the 
spheres ; 

But like the sun eclips'd at morning tide, 
Thou left'st us darklinir in a world of tears. 



Let me hear from 



soon. Adieu 



No. CLVIII. 
- TO MR. PETER HILL. 

17 th January, 1791. 
Take these two guineas, and place them over 

against that account of yours ! which 

has gagged my mouth these five or six months ! 
I can as little write good things as apologies to 
the man I ewe money to. O the supreme ci'rse 
of making three guineas do the business of five ! 
Not all the labours of Hercules ; not all the He- 
brews' three centuries of Egyptian bondage were 

such an insuperable business, such an 

task ! ! Poverty ! thou half-sister of death, thou 
cousin-german of hell ! where shall I find force 
of execration equal to the amplitude of thy de- 
merits ? Oppressed by thee, the venerable an- 
cient, grown hoary in the practice of every vir- 
tue, laden with years and wretchedness, im- 
plores a little — little aid to support his exist- 
ence, from a stony-hearted son of Jlammon, 
whose sun of prosperity never knew a ?.loud ; 
and is by him denied and insulted. Oppressed 
by thee, the man of sentiment, whose heart 
glows with independence, and melts with sensi- 
bility, inly pines under the neglect, or writhes 
in bitterness of soul, under the c(Mitumely of ar- 
rogant, unfeeling wealth. Oppressed by thee, 
the son of genius, whose ill-starred ambition 
plants him at the tables of the fashionable and 
polite, must see, in suffering silence, his remark 
neglected, and his person despised, while sh.il- 
low greatness, in his idiot attempts at wit, shall 
meet with countetiance and applause. Nor is it 
only the family of worth that have reason to 
complain of thee ; the children of folly and vice, 
though in common with thee, the offspring of 
evil, smart equally under thy rod. Owiug to 
thee, the man of unlijrtunate disposition and ne- 
glected education, is condemned as a fool for his 
dissipation, despised and shunned as a needy 
wretch, when his follies, as usual, bring him to 
want : and when his unprincipled necessities 
drive him to dishonest practices, he is abhorred 
as a miscreant, and perishes by the justice of his 



country. But far otherwise is the lot of the man 
of family and fortune. His early follies and ex- 
travagance, are spirit and fire ; his consequent 
wants, are the embarrassments of an honest fel- 
low ; and when, to remedy the matter, he has 
gained a legal commission to plunder distant 
provinces, or massacre peaceful nations, he re- 
turns, perhaps, laden with the spoils of rapine 
and murder ; lives wicked and respected, and 

dies a and a lord. — Nay, worst of all, 

alas for helpless woman ! the needy prostitute, 
who has shivered at the corner of the street, 
waiting to earn the wages of carnal prostitution, 
is left neglected and insulted, ridden down by 
the chariot-wheels of the coroneted rip, hurry- 
ing on to the guilty assignation : she, who, 
without the same necessities to plead, riots 
nightly in the same guilty trade. 

Well ! divines may say of it what they please, 
but execration is to the mind, what phlebotomy 
is to the body ; the vital sluices of both are 
wonderfully relieved by their respective evacua- 
tions. 



No. CLIX. 

PROM A. F. TYTLEI^, Esq. 

PEAR SIR, Edinburgh, I2th March, 1791 

Mr. HiiLL yesterday put into my hands a 
sheet of G'/Oac's Antiquities, containing a poem 
of yours, entitled Tain o' Shanier, a tale. The 
very high pleasure I have received from the 
perusal of this admirable piece, I feel, demands 
the warmest acknowledgments. H'U tells me 
he is to send off a packet for you this day ; I 
cannot resist therefore putting on paper what I 
must have told you in person, hud I met with 
you after the reoent perusal of your tale, which 
is, that I feel I owe you a debt, which. If uu- 
discliarged, would reproach me with ingrati- 
tude. I have seldom in my life tasted of higher 
enjoyment from any work of genius, than 1 have 
received from this composition; and I am muck 
mistaken, if this poem alone, had you never 
written another syllable, would not have been 
sufficient to have transmitted your name down 
to posterity with high reputation. In the in- 
troductory part, where you paint the character 
of your hero, and exhibit him at the ale-house 
ingle, with his tippling cronies, yon have deli- 
neated nature with a humour and naivete, that 
would do honour to Matthew Prior ; but when 
you describe the unfortunate orgies of tho 
witches' sabbath, and the hellish scenery in 
which they are exhibited, you display a power 
of imagination, that Shakspeare himself could 
not have exceeded. I know not that I have 

I ever met with a picture of more horrible fancy 

I than the following : 

j " Coffins stood round like open presses. 

That showed the dead in their last dresses : 



332 



BURNS' WORKS. 



And by some devilish cantrip slight. 
Each in his cauld hand held a light." 

But when I came to the succeeding lines, my 
blood ran cold within me : 

*• A knife a father's throat had mangled, 
Whom his ain son of life bereft : 
The grey hairs yet stuck to the heft." 

And here, after the two following lines, " Wi' 
mair o' horrible and awfu'," &c. the descriptive 
part might perhaps have been better closed, than 
the four lines which succeed, which, though 
good in themselves, yet as they derive all their 
merit from the satire they contain, are here 
rather misplaced among the circumstances of 
pure horror.* The initiation of the young 
witch is most happily described — the effect of 
her charms, exhibited in the dance, on Satan 
himself — the apostrophe — " Ah, little thought 
thy reverend grannie !" — the transport of Tarn, 
w^ho forgets his situation, and enters completely 
into the spirit of the scene, are all features of 
high merit, in this excellent composition. The 
only fault it possesses, is, that the winding up, 
or conclusion of the story, is not commensurate 
to the interest which is excited by the descrip- 
tive and characteristic painting of the preceding 
parts — The preparation is fine, but the result 
is not adequate. But for this, perhaps, you 
have a good apology — you stick to the popular 
tale. 

And now that 1 have got out my mind, and 
feel a little relieved of the weight of that debt 
I owed you, let me end this desultory scroll by 
an advice : — You have proved your talent for 
a species of composition, in which but a very 
few of our own poets have succeeded — Go on 
— write more tales in the same style ; you will 
eclipse Prior and La Fontaine ; for, with equal 
wit, equal power of numbers, and equal naivete 
of expression, you have a bolder, and more vi- 
gorous imagination. 

I am, dear Sir, with much esteem, 
Yours, &c. 



No. CLX. 
TO THE SAME. 

BIR, 

Nothing less than the unfortunate accident 
I have met with, could have prevented my 
grateful acknowledgments for your letter. His 
own favourite poem, and that an essay in a 
walk of the muses entirely new to him, where 
consequently his hopes and fears were in the 
most anxious alarm for his success in the at- 
tempt ; to have that poem so much applauded 
by one of the hist judges, was the most delici- 
ous vibration that ever trilled alon"; the heart- 



* Our bard profited by Mr. Tytler's criticism, and 
expunged the four lines accordingly. 



strings of a poor poet. However, providence, 
to keep up the proper proportion of evil with 
the good, which, it seems is necessary in this 
sublunary state, thought proper to check my 
exultation by a very serious misfortune. A 
day or two after I received your letter, my 
horse came down with me and broke my right 
arm. As this is the first service my arm has 
done me since its disaster, I find myself unable 
to do more than just in general terms to thank 
you for this additional instance of your patron- 
age and friendship. As to the faults you de- 
tected in the piece, they are truly there : one 
of them, the hit at the lawyer and priest, I shall 
cut out ; as to the falling off in the catastrophe, 
for the reason you justly adduce, it cannot easily 
be remedied. Your approbation. Sir, has given 
me such additional spirits to persevere in this 
species of poetic composition, that I am already 
revolving two or three stories in my fancy. If 
I can bring these floating ideas to bear any kind 
of embodied form, it will give me an additional 
opportunity of assuring you how much I have 
the honour to be, &c. 



No. CLXL 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Ellisland, 1th February, 179lv 
When I tell you, Madam, that by a fall, not 
from my horse, but with my horse, I have been 
a cripple some time, and that this is the first 
day my arm and hand have been able to serve 
me in writing ; you will allow that it is too 
good an apology for my seemingly ungrateful 
silence. I aui now getting better, and am able 
to rhyme a little, which implies some tolerable 
ease ; as I cannot think that the most poetic 
genius is able to compose on the rack. 

I do not remember if ever I mentioned to you 
my having an idea of composing an elegy ou 
the late Miss Burnet of Monboddo. I had the 
honour of being pretty well acquainted with 
her, and have seldom felt so much at the loss of 
an acquaintance, as when I heard that so amia- 
ble and accomplished a piece of God's works 
was no more. I have as yet gone no farther 
than the following fragment, of which please let 
me have your opinion. You know that elegy 
is a subject so much exhausted, that any new 
idea on the business is not to be expected ; 'tis 
well if we can place an old idea in a new light. 
How far I have succeeded as to this last, you 
will judge from what follows : — {See p. 34-7, 
then this additional verse), 

The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, 
That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and 
care ! 

So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree, 
So from it ravaged, leaves it bleak and bare, 

I have proceeded no further. 



i 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



353 



Your kind letter, with your kind remem- 
brance of your god-son, caiue safe. This last. 
Madam, is sjtarcely what my pride can bear. 
As to the little fellow, he is, partiality apart, 
the finest boy I have of a long time seen. lie 
is now seventeen months old, has the small-pox 
and measles over, has cut several teeth, and yet 
never had a grain of doctor's drugs in his 
bowels. 

I am truly happy to hear that the " little 
floweret" is blooming so fresh and fair, and that 
the " mother plant" is rather recovering her 
drooping head. Soon and well may her " cruel 
wounds" be healed ! I have written thus far 
with a good deal of difficulty. When I get a 
little abler you shall hear farther from, 

Madam, yours, &c. 



No. CLXII. 



TO LADY W. M. CONSTABLE, 

ACKNOWLEDGING A PRESENT OF A VALUABLE 
SNUFF-BOX, WITH A FINE PICTURE OF MARY, 
QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON THE LID. 

MY LADY, 

Nothing less than the unlucky accident of 
having lately broken my right arm, could have 
prevented me, the moment I received your lady- 
ship's elegant present by Mrs. 3Iiller, from re- 
turning you my warmest and most grateful ac- 
knowledgments. 1 assure your ladyship, I shall 
set it apart ; the symbols of religion shall only 
be more sacred. In the moment of poetic com- 
position, the box shall be my inspiring genius. 
When 1 would breathe tlie comprehensive wish 
of benevolence for the happiness of others, I 
shall recollect your ladyship ; when I would in- 
terest my faucy in the distresses incident to hu- 
manity, I shall remember the unfoitunate Mary. 



No. CLXIII. 



TO MRS. GRAHAM, OF FINTRY. 

MADAM, 

Whether it is that the story of our Mary, 
Queen of Scots, has a peculiar effect on the 
feelings of a poet, or wliether I have, in the en- 
closed ballad, succeeded beyond my usual poetic 
success, 1 know not : but it has pleased me be- 
yond any effort of my muse for a good while 
past ; on that account I enclose it particularly 
to you. It is true, the purity of my motives 
may be suspected. I ara already deeply indebt- 
ed to Mr. G 's goodness ; and, what in 

the usual ways of men ^ is of infinitely greater 



importance, Mr. 0. can do me service of the 
utmost importance in time to come. I was 
born a poor dog ; and however I may occasion- 
ally pick a better bone than I used to do, I 
know I must live and die poor ; but I will in- 
dulge the flattering faith that my poetry will 
considerably outlive my poverty ; and without 
any fustain affectation of spirit, I can promise and 
affirm, that it nmst be no ordinary craving of 
the latter shall ever make me do any thing in- 
jurious to the honest fame of the former. What- 
ever may be my failings, for failings are a part 
of human nature, may they ever be those of a 
generous heart, and an independent mind. It 
is no fault of mine that I was born to depen- 
dence ; nor is it Mr. G 's chiefest praise 

that he can command influence ; but it his me- 
rit to bestow, not only with the kindness of a 
brother, but with the politeness of a gentleman ; 
and I trust it shall be mine, to receive with 
thankfulness and remember with undiminished 
gratitude. 



No. CLXIV. 



FROM THE REV. (NOW PRINCIPAL) 
BAIRD. 

SIR, London, 8th Februaiy, 1791. 

I TROUBLE you with this letter, to inform 
you that I am in hopes of being able very soon 
to bring to the press a new edition (long since 
talked of) of Michael Bnice's Poems. The 
profits of the edition are to go to his mother — 
a woman of eighty years of age — poor and help- 
less. The poems are to be published by sub- 
scription ; and it may be possible, I think, to 
make out a 2s. 6d. or 3s. volume, with the as- 
sistance of a few hitherto unpublished verses, 
which I have got from the mother of the poet. 

But tlie design I have in view in writing to 
you, is not merely to inform you of these facts, 
it is to solicit the aid of your name and pen in 
support of the scheme. The reputation of Bruce 
is already high with every reader of classical 
taste, and T shall be anxious to guard against 
tarnishing his character, by allowing any new 
poems to appear that may lower it. For this 
purpose, the MSS. I am in possession of, have 
been submitted to the revision of some whose 
critical talents I can trust to, and I mean still to 
submit them to others. 

May I beg to know, therefore, if you will 
take the trouble of perusing the MSS. — of giv- 
ing your opinion, ami suggesting what curtail- 
ments, alterations, or amendments, occur to you 
as advisable ? And will you allow us to let it be 
known, that a few lines by you will be added 
to the volume ? 

I know the extent of this> request — It is 
bold to make it. But I have tliis consolation, 
that though you see it proper to refuse it, you 
65 



354 



BURNS' WORKS. 



will not blame me for having made it ; you will 
see my apology in the motive. 

May I just add, that IMichael Bruce is one in 
whose company, from his past appearance, you 
would not, I am convinced, blush to be found ; 
and as I would submit every line of his that 
should now be published, to your own criti- 
cisms, you would be assured that nothing dero- 
gatory either to him or you, would be admitted 
in that appearance he may make in future. 

You have already paid an honourable tribute 
to kindred genius in Fergusson — I fondly hope 
that the mother of Bruce will experience your 
patronage. 

I wish to have the subscription papers circu- 
lated by the 1 4th of March, Bruce's birth-day ; 
which, I understand, some friends in Scotland 
talk this year of observing — at that time it will 
be resolved, I imagine, to place a plain, humble 
stone over his grave. This, at least, I trust 
you will agree to do — to furnish, in a few coup- 
lets, an inscriptioyi for it. 

On those points may I solicit an answer as 
early as possible ; a short delay might disap- 
})oint us in procuring that relief to the mother, 
which is the object of the whole. 

You will be pleased to address for me under 
cover to the Duke of Athole, London. 



P. S. — Have you ever seen an engraving 
published here some time ago from one of your 
poems, " O thou Pale OrbJ" If you have 
not, I shall have the pleasure of sending it to 
you. 



No. CLXV. 
TO THE REV. G. BAIRD, 

IN ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING. 

Why did you, my dear Sir, write to me in 
such a hesitating style, on the business of poor 
Bruce ? Don't I know, and have I not felt, 
the many ills, the peculiar ills that poetic flesh 
is heir to ? You shall have your choice of all 
the unpublished poems I have ; and had yoiir 
letter had my direction so as to have reached 
me sooner (it only came to my hand this mo- 
ment), I should have directly put you out of 
suspense on the subject. I only ask, that some 
prefatory advertisement in the book, as well as 
the subscription bills, may bear, that the publi- 
cation is solely for the benefit of Bruce's mo- 
ther. 1 would not put it in the power of igno- 
rance to surmise, or malice to insinuate, that I 
clubbed a share in the work from mercenary 
motives. Nor need you give me credit for any 
remarkable generosity in my part of the busi- 
ness. I have such a host of peccadilloes, fail- 
ings, follies, and backslidings (any body but my- 
fcclf might perhaps give some of them a worse 



appellation), that by way of some balance, how- 
ever trifling, in the account, I am fain to do any 
good that occurs in my very limited power to a 
fellow-creature, just for the selfish purpose of 
clearing a little the vista of retrospection. 



No. CLXVI. 
TO THE REV. ARCH. ALISON. 

Ellisland, near Dumfries, \ith Feb. 1791. 

SIR, 

You must, by this time, have set me down 
as one of the most ungrateful of men. You 
did me the honour to present me with a book 
which does honour to science and the intellectual 
powers of man, and I have not even so much as 
acknowledged the receipt of it. The fact is, 
you yourself are to blame for it. Flattered as 
I was by your telling me that you wished to 
have my opinion of the work, the old spiritual 
enemy of mankind, who knows well that vanity 
is one of the sins that most easily beset me, put 
it into my head to ponder over the performance 
with the look-out of a critic, and to draw up 
forsooth a deep learned digest of strictures on a 
composition, of which, in fact, until I read the 
book, I did not even know the first principles. 
I own. Sir, that at first glance, several of your 
propositions startled me as paradoxical. That 
the martial clangor of a trumpet had something 
in it vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime, 
than the twingle twangle of a Jews' harp ; that 
the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the 
half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the 
dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and elegant 
than the upright stub of a burdock ; and that 
from something innate and independent of all 
association of ideas ; — these I had set down as 
irrefragible, orthodox truths, until perusing your 
book shook my faith, — In short, Sir, except 
Euclid's Elements of Geometry, which I made 
a shift to unravel by my father's fire-side, in the 
winter evening of the first season I held the 
plough, I never read a book which gave me 
such a quantum of information, and added so 
much to my stock of ideas as your " Essatjs on 
the Principles of Taste." One thing. Sir, you 
must forgive my mentioning as an uncommon 
merit in the work, I mean the language. To 
clothe abstract philosophy in elegance of style, 
sounds something like a contradiction in terms ; 
but you have convinced me that they are quite 
compatible. 

I enclose you some poetic bagatelles of my 
late composition. The one in print is my first 
essay in the way of telling a talc. 

I am, Sir, &c. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



355 



No. CLXVII. 
TO DR. MOORE. 

Ellisland, 2Sth Fehruanj, 1791. 

I DO not know, Sir, whether you are a sub- 
scriber to Groses Antiquities of Scotland. If 
you are, the enclosed poem will not be altoge- 
ther new to you. Captain Grose did me the 
favour to send me a dozen copies of the proof- 
sheet, of which this is one. Should you have 
read the piece before, still this will answer the 
principal end I have in view : it will give me 
another opportunity of thanking you for all you 
goodness to the rustic bard ; and also of show 
jng you, that the abilities you have been pleas 
ed to commend and patronize are still employed 
in the way you wish. 

The Elegy on Captain Henderson, is a tri- 
bute to the memory of a man I loved much 
Poets have in this the same advantage as Ro 
man Catholics ; they can be of service to their 
friends after they have past that bourne where 
all other kindness ceases to be of any avail 
Whether, after all, either the one or the othei 
be of any real service to the dead, is, I fear, very 
problematical ; but I am sure they are highly 
gratifying to the living : and as a very orthodox 
text, I forget where in Scripture, says, " what- 
soever is not of faith, is sin ;" so say I, what- 
soever is not detrimental to society, and is of 
positive enjoyment, is of God, the giver of all 
good things, and ought to be received and en- 
joyed by his creatures with thankful delight. 
As almost all my religious tenets originate from 
my heart, I am wonderfully pleased with the 
idea, that I can still keep up a tender inter- 
course with the dearly beloved friend, or still 
more dearly beloved mistress, who is gone to 
the world of spirits. 

The ballad on Queen Mary was begun while 
I was busy with Percy's Heliqnes of English 
Poetry. By the way, how much is every 
honest heart, which has a tincture of Caledonian 
prejudice, obliged to you for your glorious story 
of Buchanan and Targe. 'Twas an unequivocal 
proof of your loyal gallantry of soul, giving Targe 
the victory. I should have been mortified to 
the ground if you had not. 



I have just read over, once more of many 
times, your Zeluco. I marked with my pen- 
cil, as I went along, every passage that pleased 
me particularly above the rest; and one, or 
two, I think, which, with humble deference, I 
am disposed to think unequal to the merits of 
the book. I have sometimes thought to tran- 
scribe these marked passages, or at least so much I 
of them as to point where they are, and send I 
them to you. Original strokes that strongly' 
depict the human heart, is your and Fielding's j 
province, beyond any other novelist I have ever 
penised. Richardson indeed might perhaps be | 
excepted ; but, unhappily, his dramatis per- j 



soncc are beings of some other world ; and how- 
ever they may captivate the unexperienced, ro- 
mantic fancy of a boy or a girl, they will ever, 
in proportion as we have made human nature 
our study, dissatisfy our riper minds. 

As to my j)rivate concerns, I am going on, a 
mighty tax-gatherer before the Lord, and have 
lately had the interest to get myself ranked on 
the list of excise as a supervisor. I am not yet 
employed as such, but in a few years I shall fall 
into the file of supervisorship by seniority. I 
have had an immense loss in the death of the 
Earl of (ilencairn ; the patron from whom all 
my fame and good fortune took its rise. Inde- 
pendent of my grateful attachment to him, 
which was indeed so strong that it pervaded 
my very soul, and was entwined with the thread 
of my existence ; eo soon as the prince's friends 
had got in (and every dog, you know, has his 
day), my getting forward in the excise would 
have been an easier business than otherwise it 
will be. Though this was a consummation de- 
voutly to be wished, yet, thank Heaven, I can 
live and rhyme as 1 am ; and as to my boys, 
poor little fellows ! if I cannot place them on 
as high an elevation in life as I could wish, I 
shall, if I am favoured so much of the Disposer 
of events as to see that period, fix them on as 
broad and independent a basis as possible. A- 
mong the many wise adages which have been 
treasured up by our Scottish ancestors, this is 
one of the best, Better he the head of the com- 
monalty, as the tail t»' the gentry. 

But I am got on a subject, which, however 
interesting to me, is of no manner of conse- 
quence to you ; so I shall give you a short poem 
on the other page, and close this with assuring 
you how sincerely I have the honour to be, 
yours, &c. 

{Beauteous Bose-Bud, p. 56.) 



No. CL XVIII. 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER 

TO IMR. CUNNINGHAJVf. 

12^// MarcJi, 1791. 
If the foregoing piece be worth your stric- 
tures, let me have them. For my own part, a 
thing that I have just composed, always appears 
through a double portion of that partial medium 
in which an author will ever view his own 
works. I believe, in general, novelty has some- 
thing in it that inebriates the fancy, and not 
unfrequently dissipates and fumes away like 
other intoxication, and leaves the poor patient, 
as usual, with an aching heart. A striking 
instance of this might be adduced, in the revo- 
lution of many a hymeneal honeymoon. But 



356 



BURNS' WORKS. 



lest I sink into stupid proso, anil so sacrilegious- 
ly intrude on the office of my parish priest, I 
shall fill up the pige in my own way, and giv^c 
you another song of my lite composition, which 
will appear, perhaps, in Jolmson's work, as well 
as the former. 

You must know a beautiful Jacobite air, 
There'll never he peace till Jamie comes home. 
When political combustion ceases to be the ob- 
ject of princes and patriots, it then, you know, 
becomes the lawful prey of historians and poets. 

( See Songs, p. 236). 



If you like the air, and if the stanzas hit your 
fancy, you cannot imagine, my dear friend, how 
much you would oblige me, if, by the charms 
of your delightful voice, you would give my 
honest effusion to " the memory of joys that are 
past," to the few friends whom you indulge in 
that pleasure. But I have scribbled ou 'till I 
hear the clock has intimated the near approach 
of 

" That hour o' night's black arch the key- 
stane." — 

So good night to you ! Sound be your sleep, 
and delectable your dreams ! Apropos, how do 
you like this thought in a balhid, I have just 
now on the tapis ? 

I look to the west, when I gae to rest. 

That happy my dreams and my slumbers may 
be : 

For far in the west is he I lo'e best — 
The lad that is dear to my baby and me ! 



Good night, once more, and God bless you 



No. CXLIX. 
TO MR. ALEXANDER DALZIEL,* 

FACTOR, FINDLAVSTON. 

Ellisland, March 19, 1791. 

MY nEAH SIB, 

I HAVE taken the liberty to frank this letter 
to you, as it encloses an idlt poem of mine, 



which I send you ; and God knows you mav 
perhaps pay dear enough for it if you read it 
through. Not that this is my own opinion ; but 
an author, by the time he has composed and 
corrected his work, has quite pored away all 
his powers of critical discrimination. 

I can easily guess from my own heart, what 
you have felt on a late most melancholy event. 
God knows what I have suffered, at the loss of 
my best frieud, my first, my dearest patron and 
benefactor ; the man to whom I owe all that I 
am and have I I am gone into mourning for 
him, and with more sincerity of grief than I 
fear some will, who by nature's ties ought to 
feel on the occasion. 

I will be exceedingly obliged to you indeed, 
to let me know the news of tiie noble family, 
how the poor mother and the two sisters sup- 
port their loss. I had a packet of })oetic baga- 
telles ready to send to Lady Bettv, when I saw 
the fatal tidings in the newspaper. I see by the 
same channel that the honoured remains of my 
noble patron, are designed to be brought to the 
family burial place. Dare I trouble you to let 
me know privately before the day of interment, 
that I may cross the country, and steal among 
the crowd, to pay a tear to the last sight of my 
ever revered benefactor ? It will oblige me be- 
yond expression. 



* This gentleman, the factor, or stewarrt, of Burns's 
noble friend, Lord Glencairn, with a view to encourage 
a second edition of the poems, laid the volume before 
his lordship, with such an account of the rustic bard's 
situation and prospects as from his slender acquaint- 
ance with him he could furnish. The result, as com- 
municated to Burns by Mr. Dalziel, ishiglily creditable 
to the character of Lord Glencairn, After reading the 
book, his lordship declared that its merits greatly ex- 
ceeded his expectation, and he took it with him as a 
Mvary curiosity to Edinburgh. He repeated his 



No. CL. 



FROM DR. MOORE. 

DEAR SIR, London, 29th March, 1791. 

Your letter of the 28tli of February I recei- 
ved only two days ago, and this <lay I had the 
pleasure of waiting on the Rev. ]Mr. liaird, at 
the Duke of Athole's, who had been so obliging 
as to transmit it to me, with the printed verses 
on Alloicaij Church, the Klecj}/ on Captain 
Henderson, and the Epitaj)h. There are many 
poetical beauties in the former : what I particu- 
larly admire are the tliree striking similes from 

" Or like the snow falls in the river," 

and the eight lines which begin with 

" By this time he was cross the ford ;" 

so exquisitely expressive of the superstitious im- 
pressions of the country. And the twenty-two 
lines from 

" Coffins stood round like open presses," 

wishes to be of service to burns, and desired Mr. Dal- 
ziel to inform him, that in patronizing the book, ush- 
ering it witli efiect into the world, or treating with 
the DookscUcrs, he would most willingly give every 
aid in his power ; adding his request that Burns would 
take the earliest opjiortunity of letting him know in 
what way or manner he could best further his interests. 
He also expressed a wish to see some of the unpub- 
lished manuscripts, with a view to establishiog his cha- 
racter with the world.— -Ckomek. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



357 



whicli, in my o))inion, arc equal to the ingre- 
dients of Shaks])eare's oauMron in Macheth. 

As for the Elcfjtf, the chief merit of it con- 
sists in the very graphical description of the ob- 
jects belonging to the country iu which the poet 
writes, and which none but a Scottish poet 
could have described, and none but a real poet, 
and a close observer of Nature, could have so 
described. 



Tbcre is something original, and to me wonder- 
fully pleasing, in the I'Jptttiph. 

1 rcniend)er you once hinted before, what you 
repeat in your hist, that you had made some re- 
marks on Zthicn, on the margin. I should be 
very gla<l to see them, and regret you did not 
send tliem before the last edition, which is just 
published. Pray transcribe them for mo, I sin- 
cerely value your opinion very highly, and pray 
do not suj)press one of those in which you cen- 
sure the sentiment or expression. Trust me it 
will break no squares between us — I am not 
akin to the Bishop of Grenada. 

I must now mention what has been on my 
mind for some time : I cannot help thinking 
you imprudent iu scattering abroad so many 
copies of your verses. It is most natural to 
give a few to confidential friends, particularly 
to thost! who are connected with the subject, 
or who are perhaps themselves the subject, but 
this ought to be done under promise not to give 
other copies. Of the poem you sent me on 
Queen Mary, I refused every solicitation for 
copies, but I lately saw it in a newspaper. My 
motive for cautioning you on this subject is, 
that I wish to engage you to collect all your 
fugitive pieces, not already printed, and after 
fliey have been re-considered, and jwlished to 
the utmost of your power, I would have you 
publish them by another subscription ; in pro- 
moting of which I will exert myself with plea- 
sure. 

In your future compositions, I wish yon 
wo\ild use the modern English. You have 
shown y(uir powers in Scottish sufficiently. 
Although in certain subjects it gives additional 
zest to the humour, yet it is lost to the Eng- 
lish ; and why should you write only for a part 
of the island, when you can command the ad- 
miration of the whole. 

If you chance to write to my friend I\frs. 
Dunlop of Dunlop, I beg to be affectionately 
remembered to her. She nmst not judge of the 
warmth of my sentiments respecting her, by the 
number of my letters ; I hardly ever write a line 
but on business : and I do not know that I 
should have scribbled all this to you, but for the 
business part, that is, to instigate you to a new 
publication ; and to tell you that when you 
think you have a sufficient number to make a 
volume, you should set your friends on getting 
subscriptions. I wish I could have a few hours 
conversation with you — I have many things to 
say which I cannot writ^. If I ever go to Scot- 



land, I will let you know, that you may meet 
me at your own house, or my friend Mrs. Ha- 
milton's, or both. 

Adieu, my dear Sir, &c. 



No. CLI. 



TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

ElUsland, Uth April, 1701. ^ 
I AM once more able, my honoured friend, to 
return you, with my own hand, thanks for the 
many instances of your friendship, and particu- 
larly for your kind anxiety in this last disaster 
that my evil genius had in store for me. How- 
ever, life is chequered — ;joy and sorrow — for 
on Saturday morning last, IMrs. Burns made 
me a present of a fine boy; rather stouter b\it 
not so handsome as your god-son was at his time 
of life. Indeed I look on your little namesake 
to be my chef cVcvuvre in that species of manu- 
facture, as I look on Tarn o' Shaiiter to be my 
standard performance in the poetical line. 'Tis 
true, both the one and the other discover a spice 
of roguish waggery, that might, perhaps, be as 
well spared ; but then tlicy also show, in my o- 
pinion, a force of genius, and a finishing polish, 
that I despair of ever excelling. Mrs. Burns 
is getting stout again, and laid as lustily about 
her to-day at breakfast, as a reaper from the 
corn-ridge. That is the peculiar privilege and 
blessing of our hale, sprightly damsels, that are 
bred among the hay and heather. We cannot 
hope for that highly polished mind, that charm- 
ing delicacy of soul, which is found among the 
female world in the more elevated statious of 
life, and which is certainly by far the most be- 
witching charm in the famous cestus of Venus. 
It is indeed such an inestimable treasure, that 
where it can be had in its native heavenly pu- 
rity, unstained by some one or other of the 
many shades of affectation, and unalloyed by 
some one or other of the many species of ca- 
price, I declare to Heaven, I should think it 
cheaply purchased at the expense of every other 
earthly good ! But as this angelic creature is, 
I am afraid, extremely rare in any station ami 
rank of life, and totally denied to such an hum- 
ble one as mine; we meaner mortals must put 
up with the next rank of female excellence — . 
as fine a figure and face we can produce as any 
rank of life whatever ; rustic, native grace; un- 
affected modesty, and unsullied purity ; nature's 
mother-wit, and the rudiments of taste ; a sim- 
plicity of soul, unsuspicious of, because unac- 
quainted with, the crooked ways of a selfislv 
interested, disingeiuious world ; — and the dear- 
est charm of all the rest, a yielding sweetness 
of disposition, and a generous warmth of heart, 
grateful for love on our part, and ardently glow- 
ing with a more than equal return ; these, 
with a healthy frame, a sound vigorous consti- 



358 



BURNS' WORKS. 



tutiou, which your high ranks can scarcely over 
liope to enjoy, are the charms of lovely woman 
in my humble walk of life. 

This is the greatest effort my broken arm has 
vet made. Do, let mc hear by first post, how 
cher petit Monsieur comes on with his small- 
pox. IMay Almighty Goodness preserve and re- 
store him ! 



No. CLII. 
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

] \th June, 1791. 

Lkt me interest you, my dear Cunningham, 
in behalf of the gentleman, who waits on you 
with this. He is a jMr. Clarke, of Moffat, 
principal schoolmaster there, and is at present 

suffering severely under the of 

one or two powerful individuals of his em- 
ployers. He is accused of harshness to 

that Avere placed under his care. 
God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility 
and genius, and such is my friend Clarke, 
when a booby father presents him with his 
booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays 
of science, in a fellow's head whose skull is im- 
pervious and inaccessible by any other way 
than a positive fracture with a cudgel ; a fellow 
whom, in fact, it savours of impiety to attempt 
making a scholar of, as he has been marked a 
blockhead in the book of fate, at the almighty 
liat of his Creator. 

The patrons of !Moffat school are, the mi- 
nisters, magistrates, and town-council of Edin- 
burgh, and as the business comes now before 
tliem, let me beg my dearest friend to do every 
thing in his power to serve the interests of a 
man of genius and worth, and a man whom I 
particularly respect and esteem. You know 
some good fellows among the magistracy and 

council, but 

particularly, you have much to say with a re- 
verend geiitlemau to whom you have the ho- 
nour of being very nearly related, and whom 
]iis country and age have had the honour to 
})roducc. I need not name the historian of 
Charles V.* I tell him, through the medium 
of his nephew's influence, that JMr. Clarke is a 
gentleman who will not disgrace even his pa- 
tronage. T know the merits of the cause tho- 
roughly, and say it, that my friend is falling 
a sacrifice to prejudiced ignorance, and . 

God help the children of dependence ! 
Hated and persecuted by their enemies, and too 
often, alas ! almost unexceptionabiy, received by 
their friends with disrespect and rejn-oach, under 
the thin disguise of cohl civility and humiliating 
advice. O to be a sturdy savage, stalking in 
the pride of his independence, amid the solitary 



Dr. Robertson was uncle to Mr. Cunningham. 



wilds of his deserts, rather than in civilized life, 
helplessly to tremble for a subsistence, precari- 
ous as the ca])rice of a fellow-creature ! Every 
man has his virtues, and no man is without his 
failings ; and curse on that privileged plain- 
dealing of friendship, which in the hour of my 
calamity, cannot reach forth the helping hand 
without at the same time pointing out those 
failings, and apportioning them their share in 
procuring my present distress. My friends, for 
such the world calls ye, and such ye think your- 
selves to be, pass by virtues if you please, but 
do, also, spare my follies : the first will witness 
in my breast for themselves, and the last will 
give pain enough to the ingenuous mind with- 
out you. And since deviating more or less from 
the paths of propriety aud rectitude, must be 
incident to human nature, do thou, fortune, 
put it in my power, always from myself, aud 
of myself, to bear the consequences of those 
eri'ors. I do not want to be independent that 
I may sin, but I want to be independent in my 
sinning. 

To return in this rambling letter to the sub- 
ject I set out with, let me recommend my friend, 
INIr. Clarke, to your acquaintance and good of- 
fices ; his worth entitles him to the one, and 
his gratitude will merit the other. I long much 
to hear from you. Adieu. 



No. CLHI. 

FROM THE EARL OF BUCHAN. 

Drtjburffk Abbey, 17 th June, 1791. 
Lord Buchan has the pleasure to invite Mr. 
Burns to make one at the coronation of the bust 
of Thomson, on Ednam Hill, on the 22d of Sep- 
tember ; for which day jjcrhaps his muse may 
inspire an ode suited to the occasion. Suppose 
JMr. Burns should, leaving the Nith, go across 
the country, and meet the Tweed at the nearest 
point from his farm — and, wandering along the 
pastoral banks of Thomson's pure parent stream, 
catch inspiration on tlie devious walk, till he 
finds Lord Buchan sitting on the ruins of Dry- 
burgh. There the commeudator will give him 
a hearty welcome, and try to light h.is lamp at 
the pure flame of native genius, upon the altar 
of Caledonian virtue. This poetical perambu- 
lation of the Tweed, is a thought of the late 
Sir Gilljert Elliot's and of Lord IMinto's, follow- 
ed out by his accomplished grandson, the pre- 
sent Sir Gilbert, who, haviug been with Lord 
Buchan lately, the project was renewed, and 
will, they hope, be executed in the manner pro- 
posed. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



359 



No. CLIV. 
TO THE SAME. 

MY LORD, 

Language sinks uudei- the ardour of my 
feeliugs, whoa I would thank your lordship for 
the honour you have done nie in inviting me 
to make one at the coronation of the bust of 
Thomson. In my first enthusiasm in reading 
the card you did me the honour to write me, I 
overlooked every obstacle, and determined to go ; 
but I fear it will not be in my power. A week 
or two's absence, in the very middle of my har- 
vest, is what I much doubt I daie not venture 
on. 

Your lordship hints at an ode for the occa- 
sion : but who would write after Collins ? I 
read over his verses to the memory of Thomson, 
and despaired. — I got indeed to the length of 
three or four stanzas, in the way of address to 
the shade of the bard, on crowning his bust. 
1 shall trouble your lordship, with the subjoin- 
ed copy of them, which, I am afraid, will be 
but too convincing a proof how unequal I am 
to the task. However, it affords me an oppor- 
tunity of approaching your lordship, and declar- 
ing how sincerely and gratefully I have the ho- 
nour to be, &c. 

{Seep. 55.) 



No. CLV. 
TO MR. THOMAS SLOAN. 

CARE OF WM. KENNEDY, ESQ. MANCHESTER. 

Ellislarid, Sept. 1, 1791. 

MY DEAR SI.OAN, 

Suspense is worse than disappointment, for 
that reason I hurry to tell you that I just now 
learn that Mr. Ballantine does not choose to in- 
terfere more in the business. I am truly sorry 
lior it, but cannot help it. 

You blame me for not writing you sooner, 
but you will please to recollect that you omit- 
ted one little necessary piece of information ; — 
your address. 

However you know equally well, my hurried 
life, indolent temper, and strength of attach- 
ment. It must be a longer period than the 
longest life " in the Vv'orld's hale and undege- 
nerate days," that will make me forget so dear 
a friend as I\Ir. Sloan. I am prodigal enough 
at times, but I will not part with such a trea- 
sure as that. 

I can easily enter into the emharras of your 
present situation. You know my favourite quo- 
tation from Young — 

" On Reason build Resoiae ! 



That column of true majesty iu man."— . 



And that other favourite one from Thomson's 
Alfred— 

" Wliat proves the hero truely great. 
Is, never, never to despaii'." 

Or, shall I quote you an author of your ac- 
quaintance ? 

" — Whether doing, suffering, or forbear- 
ing, 
You may do miracles by — persevering." 

I have nothing new to tell you. The few 
friends we have are going on in the old way. I 
sold my crop on this day se'night, and sold it 
very well. A guinea an acre, on an average, 
above value. But such a scene of drunkenness 
was hardly ever seen in tliis country. After 
the roup was over, about thirty jjcople engaged 
iu a battle, every man for his own hand, and 
fought it out for three hours. Nor was the 
scene much better in the house. No fighting, 
indeed, but folks lying drunk on the floor, and 
decanting, until both my dogs got so drunk by 
attending them, that they could not stand. 
You will easily guess how I enjoyed the scene ; 
as I was no farther over than you used to see 
me. 

INIrs. B. and family have been in Ayrshire 
these many weeks. 

Faiewell ! and God bless you, my dear Friend ! 



No. CLVL 
FROM THE EARL OF BUCHAN. 

Dryhurgh Alibey, ISth September, 1791. 

SIR, 

Your address to the shade of Thomson has 
been well received by the public ; and though 1 
should disapprove of your allowing Pegasus to 
ride with you off the field of your honourable 
and useful profession, yet I cannot resist an im- 
pulse which I feel at this moment to suggest to 
"^our muse. Harvest Home, as an excellent sub- 
ject for her grateful song, in which the peculiar 
aspect and manners of our country might fur- 
nish an excellent portrait and landscape of Scot- 
land, for the employment of happy moments of 
leisure and recess, from your more important 
occupations. 

Your Halloween, and Saturday Night, will 
remain to distant posterity as interesting pic- 
tures of rural innocence and hapj)iness in your 
native country, and were happily written in the 
dialect of the people ; but Harvest Home being 
suited to descriptive poetry, except where collo- 
quial, may escape disguise of a dialect which ad- 
nuts of no elegance or dignity of expression. 
Without the assistance of any god or goddess, 
and without the invocation of any foreign muse, 
>ou juay convey iu epistolary form the descrip- 



360 



BURNS' WORKS. 



tion of a scene so gladdening and picturesque, 
with all the concomitant local position, land- 
scape and costume ; contrasting the peace, im- 
provement, and happiness of the borders of the 
once hostile nations of Britain, with their former 
oppression and misery, and showing, in lively 
and beautiful colours, the beauties and joys of a 
rural life. And as the unvitiated heart is na- 
turally disposed to overflow in gi atitude in the 
moment of ])rospcrity, such a subject would fur- 
nish you with an amiable opportunity of perpe- 
tuating the names of Glencairn, Miller, and 
your other eminent benefactors ; which from 
what I know of your spirit, and have seen of 
your poems and letters, will not deviate from 
the chastity of praise, that is so uniformly unit- 
ed to true taste and genius. 

I am, Sir, &c. 



No. CLVII. 
TO LADY E. CUNNINGHAM 

MY LADY, 

I WOULD, as usual, have availed myself of the 
privilege your goodness has allowed me, of send- 
ing you any thing I compose in my poetical 
way ; but as I had resolved, so soon as the 
shock of ray irreparable loss would allow me, to 
pay a tribute to my late benefactor, I determined 
to make that the first piece I should do myself 
the honour of sending you. Had the wing of 
my fancy been equal to the ardour of my heart, 
the enclosed had been much more worthy your 
perusal ; as it is, I beg leave to lay it at your 
ladyship's feet. As all the world knows my 
obligations to the late Earl of Glencairn, I would 
wish to show as openly that my heart glows, 
and shall ever glow, with the most grateful 
sense and remembrance of his lordship^s good- 
ness. The sables I did myself the honour to 
wear to his lordship's memory, were not the 
" mockery of woe." Nor shall my gratitude 
perish with me : — If, araOng my children, I 
shall have a son that has a heart, he shall hand 
it down to his child as a family honour, and a 
family debt, that my dearest existence I owe to 
the noble house of Glencairn ! 

I was about to say, my lady, that if you think 
the poem may venture to see the light, I would, 
in some way or other, give it to the world. * 



No. CLVIII. 
TO MR. AINSLIE. 

MY DEAR AINSLIE, 

Can you minister to a mind diseased ? Can 
you, amid the horrors of penitence, regret, re- 
morse, head-ache, nausea, and all the rest of the 
d — d hounds of hell, that beset a poor wretch, 
who has been guilty of the sin of drunkenness — 
can you speak peace to a troubled soul ? 

Miserable perdu that I am, I have tried every 
thing that used to amuse me, but in vain : here 
must I sit a monument of the vengeance laid up 
in store for the wicked, slowly counting every 
chick of the clock as it slowly — slowly numbers 
over these lazy scoundrels of hours, who, d — n 
them, are ranked up before me, every one at his 
neighbour's backside, and every one with a bur- 
then of anguish on his back, to pour on my de- 
voted head — and there is none to pity me. My 
wife scolds me ! my business torments me, and 
my sins come staring me in the face, every one 
telling a more bitter tale than his fellow. — 
When I tell you even .... has lost its 
power to please, you will guess something of 
my hell within, and all around me — I began 
JSlibanks and Elibraes, but the stanza fell un- 
enjoyed, and unfinished from my listless tongue j 
at last I luckily thought of reading over an old 
letter of yours, that lay by me in my book-case, 
and I felt something for the first time since I 

opened my eyes, of pleasurable existence. 

Well — I begin to breathe a little, since I began 
to write you. How are you, and what are you 
doing ? How goes law ? Apropos, for connec- 
tion's sake do not address to me supervisor, for 
that is an honour I cannot pretend to — I am on 
the list, <as we call it, for a supervisor, and will 
be called out by and bye to act one ; but at 
present, I am a simple gauger, tho' t'other day I 
got an appointment to an excise division of L.25 
per ann. better than the rest. My present in 
come, down money, is \..10 per a-n^ri. 



* The poem enclosed, is The Lument for James, 
Earl of Glencairn. 



1 have one or two good fellows here whom 
you would be glad to know. 



No. CLIX. 

FROM SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD. 

SIR, Near Majjbole, \Gth Oct. 1791 

Accept of my thanks for your favour with 
the Lament on the death of my much esteemed 
friend, and your worthy patron, the perusal of 
which pleased and affected me much. The hne8 
addressed to me are very flattering. 

I have always thought it most natural to sup- 
pose, (and a strong aigumcnt in favour of u fu 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



'm 



ture existence) that when we see au honourable 
and virtuous man labouring under bodily infir- 
jnities, and oppressed by the frowns of fortune 
in this world, that there was a happier state be- 
yond the grave ; where that worth and honour 
which were neglected here, would meet with 
their just reward, and where temporal misfor- 
tunes would receive an eternal recompense. Let 
us cherish this hope for our departed friend ; 
and moderate our grief for that loss we have 
sustained ; knowing that he cannot return to 
us, but we may go to him. 

Remember me to your wife, and with every 
good wish for the prosperity of you and your 
family, believe me at all times. 

Your most sincere friend, 

JOHN WHITEFOORD. 






No. CLX. 



FROM A. F. TYTLER, Esq. 



Edinburgh, 27th Nov. 1791. 

You have much reason to blame me for ne- 
glecting till now to acknowledge the receipt of 
a most agreeable packet, containing The Whis- 
tle, a ballad ; and lite Lament ,- which reached 
me about six weeks ago in London, from whence 
I am just returned. Your letter was forwarded 
to me there from Edinburgh, where, as I ob- 
served by the date, it had lain for some days. 
This was an additional reason for me to have 
answered it immediately on receiving it ; but 
the truth was, the bustle of business, engage- 
ments and confusion of one kind or another, in 
vvhich I found myself immersed all the time I 
was in London, absolutely put it out of my 
power. But to have done with apologies, let 
me now endeavour to prove myself in some de- 
gree deserving of the very flattering compliment 
you pay me, by giving you at least a frank and 
candid, if it should not be a judicious criticism 
on the poems you sent me. 

The ballad of The Whistle is, in my opinion, 
truly excellent. The old tradition ■iVhich you 
have taken up is the best adapted for a Baccha- 
nalian composition of any I have ever met with, 
and you have done it full justice. In the first 
place, the strokes of wit arise naturally from 
the subject, and are uncommonly happy. For 
example, — 

'''''The bands grew the tighter the more they 
were wet." 

<f Cynthia hinted she'd find tbem next morn." 

'"'''' Though Fate said a hero should perish in light, 
So up rose bright Phoebus and down fell the 
knight." 

In the next place, you are singularly happy in 



the discrimination of your heroes, and in giving 
each the seutin\euts and language suitable to his 
character. And, lastly, you have much merit 
in the delicacy of the panegyric which you have 
contrived to throw on each of the dramatis per- 
sotKE, perfectly appropriate to his character. 
The compliment to Sir Robert, the blunt sol- 
dier, is peculiarly fine. In short, this composi- 
tion, in my opinion, docs you great honour, and 
I see not a line or a word in it which I could 
wish to be altered. 

As to The Lament, I suspect, from some ex- 
pressions in your letter to me, that you are more 
doubtful with respect to the merits of this piece 
than of the other, and I own I think you have 
reason ; for although it contains some beautiful 
stanzas, as the first, " The wind blew hollow," 
&c. the fifth, " Ye scatter 'd birds ;" the thir- 
teenth, " Awake thy last sad voice," &c. Yet 
it appears to me faulty as a whole, and inferior 
to several of those you have already published 
in the same strain. My principal objection lies 
against the plan of the piece. I think it was 
unnecessary and improper to put the lamenta- 
tion in the mouth of a fictitious character, an 
aged hard, — It had been much better to have 
lamented your patron in "j-our own person, to 
have expressed your genuine feelings for his loss, 
and to have spoken the language of nature rather 
than that of fiction on the subject. Compare 
this with your poem of the same title in your 
printed volume, which begins, O thou pale 
Orb ! and observe what it is that forms the 
charm of that composition. It is, that it speaks 
the language of trt(th and of nature. The change 
is, in my opinion, injudicious too in this respect, 
that an aged bard has nmch less need of a pa- 
tron and protector than a yovjig one. I have 
thus given you, with much freedom, my opinion 
of both the pieces. I should have made a very 
ill return to the compliment you paid me, if I 
had given you any other than my genuine sen- 
timents. 

It will give me great pleasure to hear from 
you when you find leisure, and I beg you will 
believe me ever, dear Sir, yours, &c. 



No. CLXI. 



TO MISS DA VIES. 



It is impossible. Madam, that the generous 
warmth and angelic purity of your youthful 
mind, can have any idea of that moral disease 
under which I unhappily must rank as the chief 
of sinners ; I mean a torpitude of the mora' 
powers that may be called, a lethargy of con- 
science — In vain remorse rears her horrent 
crest, and rouses all her snakes ; beneath the 
deadly fixed eye and leaden hand of indolence, 
their wildest ire is charmed into the torpor of the 
bat, slumbering out the rigours of winter in the 
66 



362 



BURNS' WORKS. 



chink of a rulued wall. Nothing less, Madam, 
could have madt me so long neglect your oblig- 
ing commands. Indeed I had one apology — the 
bagatelle was not worth presenting. Besides, 

BO strongly am I interested in Miss D 'sfate 

and welfare in the serious business of life, amid 
its chances and changes ; that to make her the 
subject of a silly ballad, is downright mockery of 
these ardent feelings ; 'tis like an impertinent 
jest to a dying friend. 

Gracious Heaven ! why this disparity be- 
tween our wishes and our powers ? Why is the 
most generous wish to make others blest, impo- 
tent and ineffectual — as the idle breeze that 
crosses the pathless desert ? In my walks of life 
I have met with a few people to whom how 
gladly would I have said — " Go, be happy ! I 
know that your hearts have been wounded by 
the scorn of the proud, whom accident has plac- 
ed above you — or worse still, in whose hand are, 
perhaps, placed many of the comforts of your 
life. But there ! ascend that rock, Indepen- 
dence, and look justly down on their littleness 
of soul. Make the worthless tremble under your 
indignation, and tlie foolish sink before your con- 
tempt ; and largely impart that happiness to 
others, which, I am. certain, will give yourselves 
so much pleasure to bestow !" 

Why, dear ]\Iadam, must I wake from this de- 
lightful reverie, and find it all a dream ? Why, 
amid my generous enthusiasm, must I find my- 
self poor and powerless, incapable of wiping one 
tear from the eye of pity, or of adding one com- 
fort to the fi'iend I love ! — Out upon the world ! 
say I, that its affairs are administered so ill ? 
They talk of reform ; — good Heaven ! what a 
reform would I make among the sons, and even 
the daughters of men ! — Down, immediately, 
should go fools from the high places where mis- 
begotten chance has perked them up, and through 
life should they skulk, ever haunted by their na- 
tive insignificance, as the body marches accom- 
panied by its shadow. — As for a much more for- 
midable class, the knaves, I am at a loss what to 
do with them : Had I a world, there should not 
be a knave in it. 



No. CLXII. 
TO MRS. DUNLOP 

Ellisland, 17 th December, 1791. 

]\Iany thanks to you. Madam, for your good 
news respecting the little floweret and the mo- 
ther plant. I hope my poetic prayers have 
been heard, and wilt be answered up to the 
warmest sincerity of their fullest extent ; and 
then Mrs. Henri will find her little darling the 
representative of his late parent, in every thing 
but his abridged existence. 

I have just finished the following song, which, 
to a lady the descendant of Wallace, and many 
heroes of his truly illustrious line, and herself 
the mother of several soldiers, needs neither pre- 
face nor apology. 

{Death Song. Seep. 230) 



But the hand that could give, I would liberally 
fill ; and I would pour delight on the heart that 
could kindly forgive, and generously love. 

Still the inequalities of his life are, among 
men, comparatively tolerable — but there is a de- 
licacy, a tenderness, accompanying every view 
in which we can place lovely Woman, that are 
grated and shocked at the rude, capricious dis- 
tinctions of fortune. Woman is the blood-royal 
of life : let there be slight degrees of precedency 
among them — but let them be all sacred. 
Whether this last sentiment be right or wrong, 
I am not accountable ; it is an original compo- 
nent feattu-e of my mind. 



■jdl 



The circumstance that gave rise to the fore- 
going verses was, looking over, with a musical 
friend, M'Donald's collection of Highland airs ; 
I was struck with one, an Isle of Skye tune, 
entitled Oran an Aoig, or. The Song of Death, 
to the measure of which I have adapted my 
stanzas. I have of late composed two or three 
other little pieces, which ere yon full orbed 
moon, whose broad impudent face now stares at 
old mother earth all night, shall have shrunk 
into a modest crescent, just peeping forth at 
dewy dawn, I shall find an hour to transcribe 
for you. A Dieuje vous commende ! 



LETTERS, 1792. 

No. CLXIII. 

TO FRANCIS GROSE, Esq. F.A.S. 

SIR, 1792. 

I BELIEVE among all our Scots' literati you 
have not met with Professor Dugald Stewart, 
who fills the moral philosophy chair in the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh. To say that he is a man 
of the first parts, and what is more, a man of 
the first worth, to a gentleman of your general 
acquaintance, and who so much enjoys the lux- 
ury of unencumbered freedom and undisturbed 
privacy, is not perhaps recommendation enough : 
— but when I inform you that Mr. Stewart's 
principal characteristic is your favourite fea- 
ture ; that sterling independence of mind, which, 
though every man's right, so few men have the 
courage to claim, and fewer still the magnani- 
mity to support : — When I tell you, that unse- 
duced by splendour, and undisgusted by wretch- 
edness, he appreciates the merits of the various 
actors in the great drama of life, merely as they 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



363 



perform tlii'ir parts — In short, lie is a man after 
your own heart, and I comply wiith his earnest 
request in letting you know that he wishes 
above all things to meet with you. His house, 
"Catrine, is within less than a mile of Sorn Cas- 
tle, "^vhifh von proposed visiting ; or if you 
could transmit him the enclosed, he would with 
the greatest pleasure, meet you any where in the 
neighbourhood. I write to Ayrshire to inform 
Mr. Stewart that I have acquitted myself of my 
promise. Should your time and spirits permit 
your meeting with Mr. Stewart, 'tis well ; if 
not, I hope you will forgive this liberty, and I 
have at least an opportunity of assuring you 
with what truth and respect, 
I am, Sir, 

Your great admirer. 

And very humble servant. 



No. CLXIV. 
TO THE SAME. 

Among the many witch stories I have heard 
relating to AUoway kirk, I distinctly remember 
only two or three. 

Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls 
of wind, and bitter blasts of hail ; in short, on 
sBch a night as the devil "would choose to take 
the air in ; a farmer or farmer's servant was 
plodding and plashing homeward with his plough 
irons ou his shoulder, having been getting some 
repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His 
way lay by the kirk of Alloway. and being ra- 
iher on the anxious look out in approaching a 
])lace so well known to be a favourite haunt of 
the devil and the devil's friends and emissaries, 
he was struck aghast by discovering through 
the horrors of the storm and stormy night, a 
light, which, on his nearer approach, plainly 
snowed itself to proceed from the haunted edi- 
fice. Whether he had been fortified from above 
on his devout supplication, as is customary with 
people when they suspect the immediate pre- 
sence of Satan ; or whether, according to ano- 
ther custom, he had got courageously drunk at 
the smithy, I will not pretend to determine ; 
hut so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay 
into the very kirk. As good luck would have 
it his temerity came off unpunished. 

The members of the infernal junto were all 
out on some midnight business or other, and he 
saw nothing but a kind of kettle or caldron, de- 
])ending from the roof, over the fire, simmering 
Fome heads of unchristened children, limbs of 
executed malefactors, fee. for the business of the 
night. — It was, in for a penny, in for a pound, 
with the honest ploughman : so without cere- 
mony he unhooked the caldron from off the fire, 
.ind pouring out the danmable ingredients, in- 
verted it ou his head, and carried it fairly home, 
where it remained long In the family, a living 
evidence of the truth of the stoiy. 



Another story which I can prove to be equal- 
ly authentic, was as follows : — 

On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farm- 
er from Carrick, and consequently whose way 
lay by the very gate of Alloway kirk-yard, in 
order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, 
which is about two or three hundred yards fur- 
ther on than the said gate, had been detained . 
by his business, till by the time he reached Al- 
loway it was the wizard hour, between night 
and morning. 

Though he was terrified, with a blaze stream- 
ing from the kirk, yet as it is a well-known fact 
that to turn back on these occasions is running 
by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudent- 
ly advanced on his road. When he had reached 
the gate of the kirk-yard, he was surprised and 
entertained, through the ribs and arches of aa 
old gothic window, which still faces the high- 
way, to see a dance of witches merrily footing it 
round their old sooty blackguard master, who 
was keeping them all alive with the power of 
his bagpipe. The farmer stopping his horse to 
observe them a little, could plainly descry the 
faces of many old women of his acquaintance 
and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was 
dressed, tradition does not say ; but the ladies 
were all in their smocks : and one of them hap- 
pening unluckily to have a smock which was 
considerably too short to answer all the purpose 
of that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled, 
that he involuntarily burst out, with a loud 
laugh, " Weel luppen, IVIaggy wi* the short 
sark!" and recollecting himself, instantly spur- 
red his horse to the top of his speed. I need 
not mention the universally known fact, that no 
diabolical power can pursue you beyond the 
middle of a running stream. Lucky it was for 
the poor farmer that the river Doon was so near, 
for notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which 
was a good one, against he reached the middle 
of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the 
middle of the stream, the jmrsuing, vengeful hags, 
were so close at his heels, that one of them actual- 
ly sprung to seize him ; but it was too late, no- 
thing was on her side of the stream but the 
horse's tail, which immediately gave way at her 
infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of light- 
ning ; but the farmer was beyond her reach. 
However, the unsightly, tail-less condition of 
the vigorous steed was to the last hour of the 
noble creature's life, an awful warning to the 
Carrick farmers, not to stay too late in Ayr 
markets. 

The last relation 1 shall give, though equally 
true, is not so well identified as the two former, 
with regard to the scene : but as the best autho- 
rities give it for Alloway, I shall relate it. 

On a summer's evening, about the time that 
nature puts on her sables to mourn the expiry 
of the chearful day, a shepherd boy belonging 
to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of 
Alloway kirk, ha<l just folded his charge, and 
was returning home. As he passed the kirk, 
in the adjoining field, he fell in with a crew of 



364 



BURNS' V/ORKS.; 1 



men and women, who ^'cie busy pulling stems 
of the plant ragwort. He observed that as 
each person pulled a ragwort, he or she got 
astride of it, and called out, " up horsie !" on 
which the ragwort flew off, like Pegasus, 
through the air with its rider. The foolish boy 
likewise pulled his ragwort, and cried with the 
rest, "up horsie!" and, strange to tell, away 
he flew with the company. The first stage at 
which the cavalcade stopt, was a merchant's 
wine cellar in Bourdeaux, where, without say- 
ing by your leave, they quaffed away at the best 
the cellar could afford, until the morning, foe to 
the imps and works of darkness, threatened to 
throw light on the matter, aijd frightened them 
from their carousals. 

The poor shepherd lad, being equally a 
stranger to the scene and the liquor, heedlessly 
got himself drunk ; and when the rest took 
horse, he fell asleep, and was found so next day 
by some of the people belonging to the merchant. 
Somebody that understood Scotch, asking him 
what he was, he said he was such-a-one's heid 
in Alloway, and by some means or other getting 
home again, he lived long to tell the world the 
wondrous tale. 

lam, &c. &'c.» 



No. CLXV. 
TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

bth Jamiary^ 1792. 

You see my hurried life, INIadam : I can only 
command starts of time ; however, I am glad 
of one thing ; since I finished the other sheet, 
the political blast that threatened my welfare 
is overblown. I have corresponded with Com- 
missioner Graham, for the Board had made 
me the subject of their animadversions ; and 
now I have the pleasure of informing vou, that 
all is set to rights in that quarter. Now, as to 
these informers, may the devil be let loose to 

but hold ! I was prayirig most fervently 

in my last sheet, and I must not so soon fall a 
swearing in this. 

Alas ! how little do the wantonlv or idlv of- 
ficious think what mischief they do by their 
malicious insinuations, indirect impertinence, 
or thoughtless blabbings. What a difference 



* This letter was copied from the Cemnra Literarla, 
1786. It was coniraunicated to the editor of that work 
by Mr. Gilchrist of Stamford, with the following re- 
mark. 

" In a collection of miscellaneous papers of the An- 
tiquary Grose, which I purchased a few years since, 
I found the following letter written to hini by Burns, 
when the former was collecting the Antiquities of Scot- 
land : When I premise it was on the second tradition 
that he afterwards formed the inimitable tale of " Tam 
O'Shanter," I cannot doubt of its being read with great 
interest. It were " burning day-light" to point out to 
a reader, (and who is not a reader ot Burns?) the 
thoughts he afterwards transplanted into the rhythmi- 
cal narrative." i 

O. G. I 



there is in intrinsic worth, candour, benevo- 
lence, generosity, kindness — in all the charities 
and all the virtues, between one class of human 
beings and another. For instance, the amiable 
circle I so lately mixed with in the hospitable 

hall of D , their generous hearts — their un- 

contaminated dignified minds — their informed 
and polished understandings — what a contrast, 
when compared — if such comparing were not 
downright sacrilege — with the soul of the mis- 
creant who can deliberately plot the destruc- 
tion of an honest man that never offended him, 
and with a grin of satisfaction see the unfortu- 
nate being, his faithful wife, and prattling inno- 
cents, turned over to beggary and ruin ! 

Your cup, my dear Madam, arrived safe. I 
had two worthy fellows dining with me the 
other day, when I, with great formality, pro- 
duced my whigmeleerie cup, and told them that 
it had been a f^imlly-plece among the descend- 
ants of .Sir William Wallace. Tills roused such 
an enthusiasm, that they insisted on bumiierlng 
the punch round in It; and by and bye, never 
did your great ancestor lay a Stnithron more 
completely to rest than for a time did your 
cup my two friends. Apropos, this is the sea- 
son of wishing. May God bless you, my dear 
friend, and bless me the humblest and sincerest 
of your friends, by granting you yet many re- 
turns of the season ! May all good things at- 
tend you and yours wherever they are scattered 
over the earth ! 



No. CLXVI. 

TO MR. WILLIAM SxMELLIE, r 

PRINTER. 

Dumfries, 2'2d Jmivarij, 179?. 
I SIT (iown, my dear Sir, to Introduce a young 
lady to you, and a lady In tiie first ranks of 
fashion too. What a task ! to you — who care 
no more for the herd of animals called young 
ladies, than you do for the herd of animals 
called young gentlemen. To you — who despise 
and detest the groupings and combinations of 
fashion, as an idiot painter that seems indus- 
trious to place staring fools and unprincipled 
knaves In the foreground of his jilcture, while 
men of sense and honesty are too often thrown 
in the dimmest shades. Mrs. Riddel, who 
will take this letter to town with her and send 
it to you, is a character that, even In your own 
way, as a naturalist and a philosopher, would 
he an acquisition to your acquaintance. The 
lady too is a votary of the muses ; and as I 
think myself somewhat of a judge In my own 
trade, I assure you that her verses, always cor- 
rect, and often elegant, are much beyond tha 
common run of the lady -poetesses of the dav. 
She is a great admirer of your book, and hear- 
ing me say that I was acquainted with you, she 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



365 



begged to be known to you, as she is just going 
to pay her first visit to our Caledonian capital. 
I told her that her best way was to desire her 
near relation, and your intimate friend, Craig- 
darroch, to have you at his house while she was 
there ; and lest you might think of a lively West 
Indian girl of eighteen, as girls of eighteen too 
often deserve to be thought of, I should take 
care to remove that prejudice. To be impar- 
tial, however, in appreciating the lady's merits, 
she has one unlucky failing, a failing which 
you will easily discover, as she seems rather 
pleased with indulging in it ; and a failing that 
you will as easily pardon, as it is a sin which 
very much besets yourself; — where she dislikes 
or despises, she ia^^pt to make no more a se- 
cret of it, than where she esteems and respects. 
I win not present you with the unmeaning 
compliments of the season, but I will send you 
my warmest wishes and most ardent pravers, 
that FORTUNE may never throw your subsist- 
ence to the mercy of a kkave, or set your 
CHARACTER On the judgment of a fool, but 
that, upright and erect, you may walk to an 
honest grave, where men of letters shall say, 
here lies a man who did honour to science ; and 
men of worth shall say, here lies a man who did 
honour to human nature ' 



No. CLXVII. 
TO MR. W. NICOLL. 

20th February, 1792. 

O THOU, wisest among the wise, meridian 
blaze of prudence, full moon of discretion, and 
chief of many counsellors ! How infinitely is 
thy puddle-headed, rattle-headed, wrong-head- 
ed, round-headed slave ind(>bfed to thy super- 
eminent goodness, that from the luminous j)ath 
of thy own right-lined rectitude, tliou lookest 
benignly down on an erring wretch, of whom 
the zig-zag wanderings dety all the powers of 
calculation, from the simple copulation of units, 
up to the hidden mysteries oi fluxions ! JMay 
one feeble ray of that light of wisdom which 
darts from thy sensorium, straight as the arrow 
of heaven, and bright as the meteor of inspira- 
tion, may it be my portion, so that I may be 
less unworthy of the face and favour of that fa- 
ther of proverbs and master of maxims, that 
antipode of folly, and magnet among the sages, 
the wise and witty Willie NicoU ! Amen ! Amen ! 
Yea, so be it ! 

For me ! I am a beast, a reptile, and know 
nothing ! From the cave of my ignorance, 
amid the fogs of my dulness, and pestilential 
fumes of my political heresies, I look up to 
thee, as doth a toad through the iron-barred 
lucerne of a pestiferous dungeon, to the cloud- 
less gloiy of a summer sun ! Sorely sighing 
in bitterness of soul, I say, when shall my name 



be the quotation of the wise, and my counte- 
nance be the delight of the godly, like the illus • 
trious lord of Laggan's many hills ? • As for 
him, his works are perfect ; never did the pen 
of calumny blur the fair page of his reputation, 
nor the bolt of hatred fly at his dwelling. 



Thou mirror of purity, when shall the elfiue 
lamp of my glimmerous understanding, purged 
from sensual appetites and gross desires, shine 
like the constellation of thy intellectual powers. 
— As for thee, thy thoughts are pure, and thy 
lips are holy. Never did the unhallowed breath 
of the powers of darknew, and the pleasures of 
darkness, pollute the sacred flame of thy sky- 
descended and heaven-bound desires ; never did 
the vapours of impurity stain the unclouded 
serene of thy cerulean imagination. O that 
like thine were the tenor of my life, like thine 
the tenor of my conversation ! then should no 
friend fear for my strength, no enemy rejoice in 
my weakness ! Then should I lie down and 
rise up, and none to make me afraid. — May thy 
pity and thy prayer be exercised for, O thou 
lamp of wisdom and mirror of morality ! thy 
devoted slave.f 



No. CLXVIII. 
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

M March, 1792. 

Since I wrote to you the last lugubrious 
sheet, I have not had time to write vou farther. 
When I say that I had not time, that, as usual, 
means, that the three demons, indolence, busi- 
ness, and ennui, have so completely shared my 
hours among them, as not to leave me a five 
minutes fragment to take up a pen in. 

Thank heaven, I feel my spirits buoying up- 
wards with the renovating y(>ar. Now I shall 
in good earnest take up Thomson's songs. I 
dare say he thinks I have used him unkindly, 
and I must own with too much appearance of 
truth. Apropos, do you know the much admir- 
ed old Highland air called The Siitors Dnch- 
ter ? It is a first-rate favourite of mine, and I 
have written what I reckon one of my best songs 
to it. I will send it to you as it was sung with 
great applause in some fashionable circles by 
Major Robertson, of Lude, who was here with 
his corps. 



There is one commission that I must trouble 
you with. I lately lost a valuable seal, a j)re- 



• Mr. NicoU. 

f This strain of irony was excited by a letter of Mr 
NicoH's containing good advice. ^ 



306 



BURNS' WORKS. 



.sent from a departed friend, which vexes me 
;nuch. I have gotten one of j-oiir Highland 
-Mibles, which I fancy would make a very de- 
cent one ; anu ! ^^^^ *« *="* "'7 armorial bear- 
ing on it ; will you be so obliging as inquire 
what will be the expense of such a business ? I 
do not know that my name is matriculated, as 
the heralds call it, at all ; but I have invented 
arms for myself, so you know I shall be chief of 
the name ; and by courtesy of Scotland, will 
likewise be entitled to supporters. These, how- 
ever, I do not intend having on ray seal. I am 
a bit of a herald ; and shall give you, secwidum 
artem, my arms. On a field, azure, a holly 
bush, seeded, proper, iu base ; a shepherd's pipe 
and crook, saltierwise, also proper, in chief. On 
a wreath of the colours, a wood-lark perching 
on a sprig of bay-tree, proper : for crest, two 
mottoes, round the top of the crest, Wood-notes 
wild. At the bottom of the shield, in the usual 
])lace. Better a wee hush than nae hicld. By 
the shepherd's pipe and crook I do not mean the 
nonsense of painters of Arcadia ; but a Stock 
and Horn, and a Club, such as you see at the 
head of Allan Ramsay, in Allan's quarto edition 
of the Gentle Shepherd. By the bye, do you 
know Allan? He must be a man of very great 
genius. — Why is he not more known ? — Has he 
no patrons ? or do " Poverty's cold wind and 
♦•rushing rain beat keen and heavy" on him ? 
1 once, and but once, got a glance of that noble 
edition of the noblest pastoral iu the world, and 
dear as it was, I mean dear as to my pocket, I 
would have bought it ; but I was told that it 
was printed and engraved for subscribers only. 
He is the only artist who has hit genuine pas- 
toral costume. What, my dear Cunningham, 
is there in riches, that they narrow and harden 
the. heart so ? I think that were I as rich as the 
sun, I should be as generous as the day ; but 
as 1 have no reason to imagine my soul a nobler 
one than any other man's, I must conclude that 
wealth imparts a bird-lime quality to the pos- 
sessor, at which the man, in his native poverty, 
would have revolted. What has led me to this, 
is the idea of such merit as Mr. Allan possesses, 
and such riches as a nabob or governor-contrac- 
tor possesses, and why they do not form a mu- 
tual league. Let wealth shelter and cherish un- 
protected merit, and the gratitude and celebrity 
of that merit will richly repay it. 



No. CLXIX. 

TO MR. T. CLARKE, Edinburgh. 

July 10, 1792. 

Mk. Burns begs leave to present his most 

respectful compliments to Mr. Clarke. — Mr. H. 

some time ago did himself the honour of wrlt- 

ing'Mr. C. respecting coming out to the coun- 



try to give a little musical instruction in ahigtr •' 
ly respectable family, where Mr. C. may hava 
his own terms, and may be as happy as indo- 
lence, the Devil, and the gout will permit him. 
Mr. B. knows well how Mr. C. is engaged with 
another family ; but cannot Mr. C. find two or 
three weeks to spare to each of them ? Mr. B. 
is deeply impressed with, and awfully conscious 
of, the high importance of Mr. C's time, whe- 
ther in the winged moments of symphonious 
exhibition, at the keys of harmony, while list- 
ening Seraphs cease their own less delightful 
strains ; — or in the drowsy hours of slumberous 
repose, in the arms of his dearly-beloved elbow- 
chair, where the frowsy, but potent power of 
indolence, circumfuses her vapours routid, and 
sheds her dews on, the head of her darling son. 
— But half a line conveying half a meaning 
from Mr. C. would make Mr. B. the very hap- 
piest of mortals. 



No. CLXX. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Annan Water Foot, 22d August, 1 792. 
Do not blame me for it, Madam— my own 
conscience, hackneyed and weather-beaten as it 
is, in watching and reproving my vagaries, fol- 
lies, indolence, &c. has continued to blame and 
punish me sufficiently. 



Do you think it possible, my dear and hon- 
oured friend, that I could be so lost to gratitude 
for many favours ; to esteem for mucli worth, 
and to the honest, kind, pleasurable tie of, now, 
old acquaintance, and I hope and am sure of pro- 
gressive increasing fiiendship — as, for a single 
day, not to think of you — to ask the Fates what 
they are doing and about to do with my much 
loved friend and her wide-scattered connexions, 
and to beg of them to be as kind to you and 
yours as they possibly can. 

Apropos (though how it is apropos, I have 
not leisure to explain), do you know that I am 
almost in love with an acquaintance of yours ? 
— Almost ! said I — I am in love, souse ! over 
head and ears, deep as the most unfathomable 
abyss of the boundless ocean ; but the word. 
Love, owing to the intcrmingledoms of the good 
and the bad, the pure and the impure, iu this 
world, being rather an equivocal term for ex- 
pressing one's sentiments and sensations, I must 
do justice to the sacred purity of my attachment. 
Know then, that the heart-struck awe ; the dis- 
tant humble approach ; the delight we shoukl 
have in gazing upon and listening to a Messen- 
ger of Heaven, appearing in all. the unspotted 
purity of his celestial home, among the coarse, 
polluted, far inferior sons of men, to deliver to 
them tidings that moke their hearts swim in joy 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



3«7 



aud their imaginations soar in transport— such, 
so delighting, and so pure, were the emotions of 
my soul on meeting the other day with Miss 

L — B — , your neighbour at M . Mr. B. 

with his two daughters, accompanied by Mr. H. 
of G. passing through Dumfries a few days ago, 
on their way to Enghind, did me the honour of 
calling on me ; on which I took my horse 
(though God knows I could ill spare the time), 
and accompanied them fourteen or fifteen miles, 
and dined aud spent the day with them. 'Twas 
about nine, I think, when I left them ; and rid- 
ing home, I composed the following ballad, of 
which you will probably think you have a dear 
bargain, as it will coast you another groat of 
postage. You must know that there is an old 
ballad beginning with 

" My bonnie Lizzie Baillie 

I'll row thee in my plaidie," &c. 

So I parodied it as follows, which is literally the 
first copy, " unanointed unannealed," as Ham- 
let says. — Sec p. \9A: 

So much for ballads. I regret that you are 
gone to the east country, as T am to be in Ayr- 
shire in about a fortnight. This world of ours, 
notwithstanding it has many good things in it, 
yet it has ever had this curse, that two or three 
people who would be the happier the oftener they 
met together, are, almost without exception, al- 
ways so placed as never to meet but once or 
twice a-year, which, considering the few years 
of a man's life, is a very great " evil under the 
sun," which I do not recollect that Solomon has 
mentioned in his catalogue of the miseries of man. 
I hope and believe that there is a state of exist- 
ence beyond the grave, where the worthy of this 
life will renew their former intimacies, with this 
endearing addition, that " we meet to part no 
more." 



" Tell us, ye dead, 
"Will none of you in pity disclose the secret 
What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be !" 

A thousand times have I made this apostrophe 
to the departed sous of men, but not one of them 
has ever thought fit to answer the question. 
" O that some courteous ghost would blab it 
out !" — but it cannot be ; you and I, my friend, 
must make the experiment by ourselves and for 
ourselves. However, I am so convinced that an 
unshaken faith in the doctrines of religion is not 
only necessary, by making us better men, but al- 
so by making us happier men, that I shall take 
every care " that your little god-son, and every 
little creature that shall call me father, shall be 
taught them. 

So ends this heterogeneous letter, written at 
this wild place of the world, in the intervals of 
my labour of discharging a vessel of rum from 
Antigua. 



No. CLxvn 

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Dumfries, \Oth September, 1792. 

No ! 1 will not attempt an apology. — Amid 
all my hurry of business, grinding the face of 
the ])ublican and the sinner on the merciless 
wheels of the excise ; making ballads, and then 
drinking, and singing them ; and, over and 
above all, the correcting the press-work of two 
different publications ; still, still I might have 
stolen five minutes to dedicate to one of the first 
of my friends and fellow-creatures. I might 
have done, as I do at present, snatched an hour 
near " witching time of night" — and scrawled 
a page or two. I might have congratulated my 
friend on his marriage ; or I might have thank- 
ed the Caledonian archers for the honour they 
have done me (though to do myself justice, I 
intended to have done both in rhyme, else I had 
done both long ere now. ) Well, then, here is 
to your good health ! for you must know, I 
have set a nipperkin of toddy by me, just by 
way of spell, to keep away the meikle horned 
Deil, or any of his subaltern imps who may be 
on their nightly rounds. 

But what shall I write to you ? — -" The voice 
said cry," and I said, " what shall I cry?" — O, 
thou spirit ! whatever thou art, or wherever 
thou makest thyself visible ! be thou a bogle by 
the eerie side of an auld thorn, in the dreary 
glen through which the herd callan maun bicker 
in his gloamin route frae the faulde ! Be thou a 
brownie, set, at dead of night, to thy task by 
the blazing ingle, or in the solitary barn where 
the repercussions of thy iron flail affright thy- 
self, as thou performest the work of twenty of 
the sons of men, ere the cock-crowing summon 

thee to thy ample cog of substantial brose Be 

thou a kelpie, haunting the ford or ferry, in the 
starless night, mixing thy laughing yell with the 
howling of the storm, and the roaring of the 
flood, as thou vicwest the perils and miseries of 
man on the foundering horse, or in the tumb-< 
ling boat ! — Or, lastly, be thou a ghost, paying 
thy nocturnal visits to the hoary ruins of decay- 
ed grandeur ; or performing thy mystic rites in 
the shadow of thy time-worn church, while the 
moon looks, without a cloud, on the silent, 
ghastly dwellings of the dead around thee ; or 
taking thy stand by the bedside of the villain, 
or the murderer, pourtraying on his dreaming 
fancy, pictures, dreadful as the horrors of un- 
veiled hell, and terrible as the wrath of incensed 
Deity ! — Come, thou spirit, but not in these 
horrid forms ; come with the milder, gentle, 
easy inspirations, which thou breathest round 
the wig of a prating advocate, or the tete of a 
tea-sipi)ing gossip, while their tongues run at 
the light-horse gallop of clishmaclaver for ever 
aud ever — come and assist a poor devil who is 
quite jaded in the attempt to share half an idea 
among half a hundred words ; to fill up four 
quarto pages, while he has not got one single 



368 



BITRNS' WX3RKS. 



senttrice of recollection, iafoiinatiou, or remark 
worth putting pen to paper for. 

T feel, I feel the presence of supernatural as- 
sistance ! circled in the embrace of my elbow- 
chair, my breast labours, like the bloated Sybil 
on her three- footed stool, and like her too, la- 
bours with Nonsense Nonsense, auspicious 

name ! Tutor, friend, and finger-post in the 
mystic mazes of law ; the cadaverous paths of 
physic ; and particularly in the sightless soar- 
ings of SCHOOL DiviKirv, who, leaving Com- 
mon Sense confounded at his strength of pinion, 
Reason delirious with eyeing his giddy flight, 
and Truth creeping back into the bottom of her 
well, cursing the hour that ever she offered her 
scorned alliance to the wizard power of Theolo- 
gic Vision — raves abroad on all the winds. " On 
earth Discord ! a gloomy Heaven above, open- 
ing her jealous gates to the nineteen thousandth 
part of the tithe of mankind ! and below, an in- 
escapable and inexorable hell, expanding its le- 
-'iathan jaws for the vast residue of mortals ! ! 



— O doctrj 



comfortable and healing to the 



weary, wounded soul of a man ! Ye sons and 
daughters of affliction, ye pauvres miserables, to 
whom day brings no pleasure, and night yields 
no rest, be comforted ! " 'Tis but one to nine- 
teen hundred thousand that your situation will 
mend in this world;" so, alas I the experience 
of the poor and the needy too often affirms ; and 
'tis nineteen hundred thousand to one, by the 

dogmas of , that you will be damned 

eternally in the world to come ! 

But of all Nonsense, Religious Nonsense is 
the most nonsensical ; so enough, and more 
than enough of it. Only, by the bye, will you, 
or can you tell me, my dear Cunningham, why 
a sectarian turn of mind has always a tendency 
to narrow and illiberalize the heart ? They are 
orderly ; they may be just ; nay, I have known 
them merciful : but still your children of sanc- 
tity move among their fellow-creatures with a 
nostril snuffing putrescence, and a foot spurning 
filth, in short, with a conceited dignity that 

your titled 

. . . or any other of your Scottish lordlings 
of seven centuries standing, display when they 
accidentally mix among the many-aproned sons 
of mechanical life. I remember, in my plough- 
boy days, I could not conceive it possible that a 
noble lord could be a fool, or a godly man could 
be a knave. — How ignorant are plough-boys ! — 
Nay, I have since discovered that a (jodly wo- 
man may be a I — But hold — Here's t'ye 

again — this rum is generous Antigua, so a very 
unfit menstruum for scandal. 

Apropos, how do you like, I mean really like 
the uuu ried life ! Ah, ray friend ! matrimony is 
quite a different thing from what your love -sick 
youths and sighing girls take it to be ! But 
marriage, we are told, is appointed by God, and 
I shall nijver (juarrel with any of his institutions. 
I am a husband of older standing than you, and 
shall give you my idtas of the conjugal state — 
(e« passantt you know I am no Latiuist, is uot 



coji/w^a/ derived from j«^«»j, a yoke?) Well, 
then, the scale of good-wifeship I divide into 

ten parts Good-nature, four ; Good Sense, 

two ; Wit, one ; Personal Charms, viz. a sweet 
face, eloquent eyes, fine limbs, graceful carriage, 
(I would add a fine Avaist too, but that is so 
soon spoilt, you know), all these, one ; as for 
the other qualities belonging to, or attending on, 
a wife, such as Fortune, Connections, Educa- 
tion, (1 mean education extraordinary), FaraiW 
Blood, &c. divide the two remaining degrees 
among them as you please ; only, remember 
that all these minor properties must be express- 
ed by fractions, for there is not any one of 
them, in the aforesaid scale, entitled to the dig- 
nity of an integer. 

As for the rest of my fancies and reveries — 
how I lately met with Miss Lesly Baillie, the 
most beautiful, elegant woman in the world 
— how I accompanied her and her father's fa- 
mily fifteen miles on their journey, out of pure 
devotion, to admire the loveliness of the works 
of God, in such an unequalled display of them 
— how, in galloping home at night, I made a 
ballad on her, of which these two stanzas make 
a part — 

Thou, bonnie Lesly, art a queen. 
Thy subjects we before thee ; 

Thou, bonnie Lesly, art divine. 
The hearts o' men adore thee. 

The very Deil he could na scaith 

Whatever wad belang thee ! 
He'd look into thy bonnie face 

And say, '• 1 canna wrang thee." 

— behold all these things are written in the 
chronicles of my imagination, and shall be read 
by thee, my dear friend, and by thy beloved 
spouse, ray other dear friend, at a more conve- 
nient season. 

Now, to thee, and to thy before-designed ho- 
soMi-companion, be given the precious things 
brought forth by the sun, and the precious 
things brought forth by the moon, and the be- 
nignest influence of the stars, and the living 
streams which flow from the fountains of life, 
and by the tree of life, for ever and ever ! — 
Amen ! 



No. CLXVHL 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

Unmfries, 2ith September, 1792. 
I HAVE this moment, my 'dear Madam, yours 
of the twenty-third. All your other kind re- 
proaches, your news, &c. are out of my head 
when I read and think on Mrs. H 's situa- 
tion. Good God ! a heart-wounded helpless 
young woman — in a strange, foreign laud, aud 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



369 



that land convulsed with cvei'y honor, that can 
harrow the human feehngs — sick — looking 
longing for a comforter, but finding none — ; 
jnother's feelings, too — but it is too much : he 
who wounded (he only can) may He heal !* 



I wish the farmer great joy of his new ac 

quisitiou to his family 

I cannot say that I give him joy of his life as a 
farmer. 'Tis, as a farmer paying a dear, un- 
conscionable rent, a cursed life ! As to a laird 
farming his own property; sowing his own 
corn in hope ; and reaping it, in spite of brittle 
weather, in gladness; knowing that none can 
t^ay unto him, " what dost thou ?" — fattening 
his herds ; shearing his flocks ; rejoicing at 
Christmas ; and begetting sons and daughters, 
until he be the venerated, grey-haired leader of 
a little tribe — 'tis a heavenly life ! but Devil 
take the life of reaping the fruits that another 
must eat. 

Well, your kind wishes will be gratified, as 
to seeing me when I make my Ayrshire visit, 

I cannot leave Mrs. B , until her nine 

months' race is run, which may perhaps be in 
three or four weeks. She, too, seems determin- 
ed to make me the patriarchal leader of a band. 
However, if Heaven will be so obliging as let 
me have them on the j)roportion of three boys 
to one girl, I shall be so much the more pleased. 
I hope, if I am spared with them, to show a set 
of boys that will do honour to my cares and 
name ; but I am not equal to the task of rear- 
ing girls. Besides, I am too poor ; a girl should 
always have a fortune. Apropos, your little 
god-son is thriving charmingly, but is a very 
devil. He, though two years younger, has com- 
pletely mastered his brother. Robert is indeed 
the mildest, gentlest creature I ever saw. He 
has a most surprising memory, and is quite the 
pride of his schoolmaster. 

You know how readily we get into prattle up- 
on a subject dear to our heart : you can excuse 
t. God bless you and yours ! 



No. CLXIX. 
TO THE SAME. 

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN ON THE 
CSATH OF MRS. H , HER DAUGHTER. 

I HAD been from home, and did not receive 
your letter until my return the other day. 
What shall I say to comfort you, my much-va- 
lued, much-afflicted friend ! I can but grieve 
with you ; consolation I have none to offer, ex- 



cept that which religion holds out to the chil- 
dren of affliction — children of affliction ! — ^ 
how just the expression ! and like every other 
fiimily, they have matters among them which 
they hear, see, and feel in a serious, all-impor- 
tant manner, of which the world has not, nor 
cares to have, any idea. The world looks in- 
differently on, makes the passing remark, and 
proceeds to the next novel occurrence. 

Alas, Madam ! who would wish for many 
years ! What is it but to drag existence until 
our joys gradually expire and leave us in a night 
of misery ; like the gloom which blots out the 
stars one by one, from the face of night, and 
leaves us, without a ray of comfort, in the howl- 
ing waste ! 

I am interrupted, and must leave off". You 
shall soon hear from me again. 



* This much-lamented lady was gone to the south 
of France with her iuXaut sou, ^vhere she died soon af- 
ter 



No. CLXX. 
TO THE SA]\tt:. 

Dumfries, 6th JDecember, 1792. 

I SHALL be in Ayrshire, I think, next week ; 
and if at all possible, I shall certainly, my much- 
esttemed friend, have the pleasure of visiting at 
Dunlop-house. 

Alas, Madam ! how seldom do we me meet 
in this world, that we have reason to congratu- 
late ourselves on occasions of happiness ! I have 
not passed half the ordinary term of an old man's 
life, and yet I scarcely look over the obituary of 
a ncwsj)aper, that I do not see some names that 
I have known, and which I, and other acquaint- 
ances, little thought to meet with there so soon. 
Every other instance of the mortality of our 
kind, makes us cast an anxious look into the 
dreadful abyss of uncertainty, and shudder with 
apprehensions for our own fate. But of how 
different an importance are the lives of different 
individuals ? Nay, of what importance is one 
period of the same life, more than another ? A 
few years ago, I could have lain down in the 
dust, " careless of the voice of the morning ;" 
and now not a few, and these most helpless in- 
dividuals, would, on losing me and my exer- 
tions, lose both their *' staff" and shield." By 
the way, these helpless ones have lately got an 
addition, JNIrs. B. having given me a fine girl 
since I wrote you. There is a charming pas- 
sage in Thomson's Edward and £lea7iora. 

The valiant, in himself, "hat can he suffer— 
Or what need he regara his single woes ?" &c. 

As I am got in tlie way of quotations, I shall 
give you another from the same piece, peculiar- 
ly, alas ! too peculiarly apposite, my dear Ma- 
dam, to your present frame of mind : 

" Who so unworthy but may proudly deck him^ 

With his fair-weather virtue, that exalts 

67 



370 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Glad o'er the summer main? the tempest 

comes, 
The rough winds rage aloud ; when from the 

helm 
This virtue shrinks, and in a corner lies, 
Lamenting — Heavens ! if privileged from trial, 
How cheap a thing were virtue !" 

I do not remember to have heard you men- 
tion Thomson's dramas. I pick up favourite 
quotations, and store them in my mind as ready 
armour, offensive, or defensive, amid the struggle 
of this turbulent existence. Of these is one, a 
very favourite one, from his Alfred, 

*' Attach thee firmly to the virtuous deeds 
And offices of life ; to life itself, 
"With all its vain and transient joys, sit loose." 

Probably I have quoted some of these to you 
formerly, as indeed when I write from the heart, 
I am apt to be guilty of such repetitions. The 
compass of the heart, in the musical style of ex- 
pression, is much more bounded than that of 
the imagination ; so the notes of the former are 
extremely apt to run into one another ; but in 
return for the paucity of its compass, its few 
notes are much more sweet. I must still give 
you another quotation, which I am almost sure 
I have given you before, but I cannot resist the 
temptation. The subject is religion — speaking 
of its importance to mankind, the author says, 

" 'Tis this, my friend, that streaks our morning 
bright," &c. as in p. 49. 

I see you are in for double postage, so I shall 
e'en scribble out t'other sheet. We in this 
country here have many alarms of the reform- 
ing, or rather the republican spirit of your part 
of the kingdom. Indeed we are a good deal in 
commotion ourselves. For me, I am a place- 
man, you know ; a very humble one indeed, 
Heaven knows, but still so much so as to gag 
me. What my private sentiments are, you will 
find out without an interpreter. 



I have taken up the subject in another view ; 
and the other day, for a pretty acti-ess's benefit- 
night, I vrrote an address, which I will give 
you on tht other page, called The Rights of 
Woman. 



THE RIGHTS OF WOMAI^. 

An Occasional Address spoken hj Miss FoN- 
TENELLE on her benefit night. 

"While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, 
The fate of empires and the fall of kings, 
"While Quacks of state must each produce his 

plan. 
And cveu children lisp the Rights of Man ; 



Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, 
The Rights of Woman merit some attention. 

First, in the sexes' Intermix'd connexion. 
One sacred Right of Woman is protection. 
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate. 
Helpless, must fall before the blast of fate, 
Sunk to the earth, defaced its lovely form, 
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm.— 

Our second Right's — but needless here Is cau- 
tion. 
To keep that right inviolate's the fashion. 
Each man of sense has it so full before him. 
He'd die before he'd wrong it — 'tis decorum.— 
There was, indeed, In far less polish'd days, 
A time, when rough rude men had naughty 

ways : 
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a 

riot, ^ 
Nay, even thus invade a lady's quiet. — 
Now, thank our stars ! these Gothic times are 

fled: 
Now, well-bred men — and you are all well- 
bred — 
IMost justly think (and we are much the gain- 
ers) 
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners.* 

For Right the third, our last, our best, our 
dearest. 
That right to fluttering female hearts the near- 
est. 
Which even the Rights of Kings In low pros- 
tration 
IMost humbly own — 'tis dear, dear admiration ! 
In that blest sphere alone we live and move ; 
There taste that life of life — immortal love — 
Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs, 
'Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares— 
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms, 
Who Is so rash as rise in rebel arms ? 

But truce with kings, and truce with consti- 
tutions. 
With bloody armaments and revolutions ; 
Let majesty your first attention summon. 
Ah ! ca ira ! the Majesty of Woman ! 

I shall have the honour of receiving your cri- 
ticisms in person at Dunlop. 



No. CLXXL 

TO R. GRAHAM, Esq. Fintry. 

SIR, December, 1792. 

I HAVE been surprised, confounded, and dis- 
tracted, by Mr. Mitchell, the collector, ^elhng 
me that he has received an order from your 



♦ Ironical allusion to the saturnalia of the Caledo- 
nian Hunt. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



371 



Boai(i to inquire into my political conduct, and 
blaming nic as a person disaflectcd to Govern- 
ment. Sir, you are a Inishand — and a father. — 
You know what you would feel, to see the much- 
loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless, 
prattling little ones, turned adrift into the world, 
de2;iaded and disgraced from a situation in which | 
they had been respectable and respected, and left | 
almost without the necessary support of a miser- j 
able existence. Alas, Sir ! must I think that j 
such, soon, will by my lot ! and from the d-mned, 
dark insinuations of hellish groundless envy too ! 
I believe. Sir, I may aver it, and in the sight of 
Omniscience, that I would not tell a deliberate 
falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors, if 
\vorse can be, than those I have mentioned, hung 
over my head ; and I say, that the allegation, 
whatever villain has made it, is a lie ! To the 
British Constitution, on revolution principles, 
next after my God, I am most devoutly attach- 
ed ! You, Sir, have been much and generously 
my friend. — -Heaven knows how warmly I have 
felt the obligation, and how gratefully I have 
thanked you. — Fortune, Sir, has made you pow- 
trful, and me impotent ; has given you patron- 
age, and me dependence. — I would not, for my 
single self, call on your humanity ; were such 
my insular, unconnected situation, I would de- 
spise the tear that now swells in my eye — I 
could brave misfortune, I could face ruin ; for 
at the worst, " Death's thousand doors stand 
open ;" but, good God ! the tender concerns 
that I have mentioned, the claims and ties that 
I sec at this moment, and feel around me, how 
they unnerve Courage, and wither Resolution ! 
To your patronage, as a man of some genius, 
)ou have allowed me a claim ; and your esteem, 
as an h(mest man, I know is my due : To these, 
Sir, permit me to appeal ; by these may I ad- 
jure you to save me from tliat misery which 
threatens to overwhelm me, and which, with 
my latest breath T will say it, I have not deserved. 



No. CLXXTI. 
TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

BEAR MADAM, Z)ece7nher 31, 1792. 

A HURRY of business, thrown in heaps by my 
absence, has until now prevented my returning 
my grateful acknowledgments to the good fa- 
mily of Dunlop, and you in particular, for that 
liospitable kindness which rendered the four 
days I spent under that genial roof, four of the 
pleasantest I ever enjoyed.— Alas, my dearest 
fiiend ! how few and fleeting are those things 
we call pleasures ! On my road to Ayrsliire, I 
spent a night with a friend whom I much valued ; 
a man whose days promised to be many ; and 
on Saturday last we laid him in the dust ! 

January 2, 1793. 
I HAVE just received yours of the 30th, and 



feel much for your situation. However, I hearti- 
ly rejoice in your prospect of recovery from that 
vile jaundice. As to myself, I am better, though 
not quite free of my complaint. — You must not 
think, as you seem to insinuate, that in my way 
of life 1 want exercise. Of that I have enough ; 
but occasional hard drinking is the devil to me. 
Against this I have again and again bent my re- 
solution, and have greatly succeeded. Taverns 
I have totally abandoned : it is the private par- 
ties in the family way, among the hard drinking 
gentleman of the country, that do me the mis- 
chief — but even this I have more than half given 
over. 

Mr. Corbet can be of little service to me at 
present ; at least I should be shy of applying. 
I cannot possibly be settled as a supervisor, for 
several years. I must wait the rotation of the 
list, ami there are twenty names before mine. — 
I might indeed get a job of officiating, where a 
settled supervisor was ill, or aged ; but that hauls 
me from my family, as I could not remove them 
on such an uncertainty. Besides, some envious, 
malicious devil, has raised a little demur on my 
political principles, and I wish to let that mat- 
ter settle before I oiFer myself too much in the 
eye of my superiors. I have set, henceforth, 
a seal on my lips, as to these unlucky politics ; 
but to you, I must breathe my sentiments. In 
this, as in every thing else, I shall shew the un- 
disguised emotions of the soul. War I depre- 
cate : misery and ruin to thousands, are in the 
blast that announces the destructive demon. But 



The remainder of this letter has been torn 
away by some barbarous hand. 



LETTERS, 1793. 



No. CLXXIII. 



TO MISS B- 



OF YORK. 



MADAM, 2\ St ^Tarch, 1793. 

Among many things for which I envy those 
hale, long-lived old fellows before the flood, is 
this in particular, that when they met with any 
body after their own heart, they had a charm- 
ing long prospect of many, many happy meet- 
ings with them in after-life. 

Now, in this short, stormy winter day of our 
fleeting existence, when you now and then, in 
the Chapter of Accidents, meet an individual 
whose acquaintance is a real acquisition, there 
are all the probabilities against you, that you 
shall never meet with that valued character 
more. On the other hand, brief as the miser- 
able being is, it is none of the least of the mi- 
series belonging to it, that if there is any mis- 
creant whom you hate, or creature whom you 
despise, the ill run of the chances shall be so 



372 



BURNS' WORKS. 



against you, that in the overtakings, turninj^s, 
and josthngs of life, pop, at some unlucky cor- 
ner, eternally comes the wretch upon you, and 
will not allow your indignation or contempt a 
moment's repose. As I am a sturdy believer 
in the powers of darkness, I take those to be 
the doings of that old author of mischief, the 
devil. It is well known that he has some 
kind of short-hand way of taking down our 
thoughts, and I make no doubt that he is per- 
fectly acquainted with my sentiments respect- 
ing Miss B ; how much I admired her 

abilities and valued her worth, and how very 
fortunate I thought myself in her ac(piaintance. 
For this last reason, my dear iVIadam, I must 
entertain no hopes of the very great pleasure of 
meeting with you again. 

JMiss II tells me that slie is sending a 

packet to you, and I beg leave to send you the 
enclosed sonnet, though to tell you the real 
truth, the sonnet is a mere pretence, that I may 
have the opportunity of declaring with how 
much respectful esteem I have the honour to 
be, &c. 



No. CLXXIV/ 

TO PATRICK MILLER, Esa. 
OF DALSWINTON. 

SIR, April, 1793. 

M\' poems having just come out in another edi- 
tion, will you do me the honour to accept of a 
copy ? A mark of my gratitude to you, as a 
gentleman to whose goodness I have been nmch 
indebted ; of my respect for you, as a patriot 
who, in a venal, sliding age, stands forth the 
charupion of the liberties of my country ; and 
of my veneration for you, as a man, whose be- 
nevolence of heart does honour to human nature. 

There was a time, Sir, when I was your de- 
pendant : this language then would have been 
like the vile incense of flattery — I could not have 
used it. — Now that connection* is at an end, 
do me the honour to accept of this honest tribute 
of respect from. Sir, 

Your much indebted humble Servant. 



No. CLXXV. 

TO .JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, EsQ.f 
OF MAR. 

SIR, Dumfries, 13th April, 1793. 

Degenerate as human nature is said to be ; 
and in many instances, worthless and unprinci- 



* Alluding to the time when he held tlie fann of El- 
lisland, as tenant to Mr. M. 

t This gentleman, most obliginglv favoured the 
Editor With a perfect copy of the orjg'inal letter, and 



pled it is ; still there are bright examples to the 
contrary : examples that even in the eyes of su- 
perior beings, must shed a lustre on the name of 
man. 

Such an example have I now before me, 
when you, Sir, came forward to patronise and 
befriend a distant obscure stranger, merely be- 
cause poverty had made him helpless, and his 
British hardihood of mind had provoked the ar- 
bitrary wantonness of power. My much es- 
teemed friend, Mr. Riddel of Glenriddel, has 
just read me a paragraph of a letter he had 
from you. Accept, Sir, of the silent throb of 
gratitude ; for words would but mock the emo- 
tions of my soul. 

You have been misinformed as to my final 
dismission from the Excise ; I am still in the 
service. — Indeed, but for the exertions of a gen- 
tleman who must be known to you, INIr. Graham 
of Fintray, a gentleman who has ever been my 
warm and generous friend, I had, without so 
much as a hearing, or the slightest previous in- 
timation, been turned adrift, with my helpless 
family, to all the horrors of want. — Had I had 
any other resource, probably I might have saved 
them the trouble of a dismission ; but the little 
money I gained by ray publication, is almost 
every guinea embarked, to save from ruin an 
only brother, who, though one of the worthiest, 
is by no means one of the most fortunate of 
men. 

In my defence to their accusations, I said, 
that whatever might be my sentiments of re- 
publics, ancient or modern, as to Britain, I ab- 
jured the idea : — That a constitution, which, 
in its original principles, experience had proved 
to be every way fitted for our happiness in so- 
ciety, it would be insanity to sa-crifice to an un- 
tried visionary theory : — That, in consideration 
of my being situated in a department, however 
humble, immediately in the hands of people in 
power, I had forborne taking any active part, 
either personally, or as an author, in the present 
business of kefoum. But that, where I must 
declare my sentiments, I would say there exist- 
ed a system of corruption between the executive 
power and the representative part of the legisla- 
ture, which boded no gowi to our glorious con- 
stitution ; and which every patriotic Briton 
must wish to see amended. — Some such senti- 
ments as these, I stated in a letter to my gene- 
rous patron Mr. Graham, wliich he laid befoic 
the Board at large ; where, it seems, my last 
remark gave great offence ; and one of our su- 

allowed him to lay it before the public. — It is partly 
printed in Dr. Cnrrie's F.dition. 

It will be neoe'^'^ary to state, that in consequence of 
the poet's freedom of remark on public measures, ma- 
Uciously misrepresented to the Board of Excise, he 
was represented as actually dismissed from his office. 
— This report induced Mr. Erskine to propose a sub- 
scription in his favour, which was refused by the poet 
with that elevetion of sentiment that peculiarly cha- 
racterised his mind, and which is so happily displayed 
in this letter. See letter No. 171, in the present vo- 
lume, written by Burns, with even more than his ac- 
customed pathos and eloquence, in further explana- 
tion.— Cromek, 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



373 



pervisors general, a Mr. Corbet, was instructed 
to inquire on the spot, and to document me — 
" that my business was to act, 7iot to think ; 
and that whatever might be men or measures, 
it was for me to be silent and ohedierit.'^ 

Mv. Corbet was likewise my steady friend ; 
so between iMr. Graham and him, I have been 
partly forgiven ; only I understand that all 
hopes of my getting officially forward, are 
blasted. 

Now, Sir, to the business in which I would 
more immediately interest you. The partiality 
of my COUNTRYMEN, has brought me forward 
as a man of genius, and has given me a charac- 
ter to support. In the poet 1 have avowed 
manly and independent sentiments, which I 
trust^will be found in the max. Reasons of no 
less weight than the support of a wife and fa- 
mily, have pointed out as the eligible, and si- 
tuated as I was, the ordy eligible line of life for 
me, my present occupation. Still my honest 
fame is my dearest concern ; and a thousand 
times have I trembled at the idea of those de- 
grading epithets that malice or misrepresenta- 
tion may affix to rny name. I have often, in 
blasting anticipation, listened to some future 
hackney scribbler, with the heavy malice of sa- 
vage stupidity, exulting in his hireling para- 
graphs — " Burns, notwithstanding the fan- 
faronade of independence to be found in his 
works, and after having been held forth to pub- 
lic view, and to public estimation as a man of 
some genius, yet, quite destitute of resources 
within himself to support his borrowed dignity, 
he dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and slunk 
out the rest of his insignificant existence in the 
meanest of pursuits, and among the vilest of 
mankind." 

In your illustrious hands. Sir, permit me to 
lodge my disavowal and defiance of these slan- 
derous falsehoods. — Bcrns was a poor man 
from birth, and an exciseman by necessity : but 
— I will say it ! the sterling of his honest worth, 
no poverty could debase, and his independent 
British mind, oppression might bend, but could 
not subdue. Have not I, to me, a more pre- 
cious stake in my country's welfare, than the 
richest dukedom in it ? — I have a large family 
of children, and the prospect of many more. I 
have three sons, who, I see already, have brought 
into the world souls ill qualified to inhabit the 
bodies of slaves — Can I look tamely on, and 
see ciny machination to wrest from them the 
birthright of my boys, — the little independent 
BRITONS, in whose veins runs my own blood ? — 
No ! I will not ! should my heart's blood stream 
around my attempt to defend it ! 

Does any man tell me, that my full efforts 
can be of no service ; and that it does not be- 
long to my humble station to meddle with the 
concern of a nation ? 

I can tell him, that it is on such individuals 
as I, that a nation has to rest, both for the 
hand of support, and the eye of intelligence. 
The uninform'd mob, may swell a nation's 



bulk ; and the titled, tinsel, courtly throng, 
may be its feathered ornament ; but the num- 
ber of those who are elevated enough in life to 
reason and to reflect ; yet low enough to keep 
lear of the venal contagion of a court; — these 
are a nation's strength. 

[ know not how to apologize for the imper- 
tinent length of this epistle ; but one small re- 
quest I must ask of you farther — When you 
have honoured this letter with a perusal, please 
to commit it to the flames. Burns, in whose 
behalf you have so generously mterested your- 
self, I have here, in his native colours drawn 
as he is ; but should any of the people in whose 
hands is the very bread he eats, get the least 
knowledge of the picture, it icould ruin the poor 
KARD/br ever ! 

IVIy poems having just come out in another 

edition, I beg leave to present you with a copy, 

as a small mark of that high e*teom and ardent 

gratitude, with which I have the honour to be. 

Sir, 

Your deeply indebted, 
And ever devoted humble servant. 



No. CLXXVI. 
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE. 

April 26, 1793. 

I AM d — mnably out of humour, my dear 
Ainslie, and that is the reason, why I take up 
the pen to you : 'tis the nearest way, (^probuttim 
est) to recover my spirits again. 

I received your last, and was much entertain- 
ed with it ; but I will not at this time, nor at 
any other time, answer it. — Answer a letter? I 
never could answer a letter in my life ! — I have 
written many a letter in return for letters I have 
received ; but then — they were original matter 
—spurt-away ! zig, here ; z.ig, there ; as if the 
Devil that, my grannie (an old woman indeed !) 
often told me, rode in will-o'-wisp, or, in her 
more classic phrase, Sfunkie, were looking 
over my elbow. — Happy thought that idea has 
engendered in my head ! Spunkie — thou shalt 
henceforth be my symbol, signature, and tute- 
lary genius ! Like thee, hap-step-and-lowp, here- 
awa-there-awa, higglety-pigglety, pell-mell, hi- 
ther-and-yon, ram-stam, happy-go-lucky, up 
tails-a'-by-the-light-o'-the-moon ; has been, is, 
and shall be, my progress tlirough the mosses 
and moors of this vile, bleak, barren wilderness 
of a life of ours. 

Come then my guardian spirit ! like thee, 
may I skip away, amusing myself by and at my 
own light : and if any opaque-souled lubber 
of mankind complain that my elfine, lambent, 
glimmerous wanderings have misled his stupid 
steps over precipices, or into bogs ; let the 
thick-headed Blunderbuss recollect, that he ia 
not Spunkie : — that 



374 



BURNS' WORKS. 



Sp'jnkie's wanderings could not copied be ; 
Amid these perils none durst walk but he. — 



I have no doubt but scholarcraft may be caught 
as a Scotsman catches the itch, — by friction. 
How else can you account for it, that born 
blockheads, by mc-e dint of handling books, 
grow so wise that even they themselves are 
equally convinced of and surprised at their own 
parts ? I once carried this philosophy to that 
degree that in a knot of country folks who had 
a library amongst them, and who, to the honour 
of their good sense, made me factotum in the 
busibess ; one of our members, a little, wise- 
looking, squat, upright, jabbering body of a 
tailor, I advised him, instead of turning over 
the leaves, to hind the hook on his hack, — Johnie 
took the hint ; and as our meetings v;eTQ every 
fourth Saturday, and Pricklouse having a good 
Scots mile to walk in coming, and, of course, 
another in returning, Bodkin was sure to lay 
his hands on some heavy quarto, or ponderous 
folio, with, and under which, wrapt up in his 
grey plaid, he grew wise, as he grew weary, all 
the way home, lie carried this so far, that an 
old musty Hebrew concordance which we had 
in a present from a neighbouring priest, by mere 
dint of applying it, as doctors do a blistering 
plaister, between his shoulders, Stitch, in a 
dozen pilgrimages, acquired as much lational 
theology as the said priest had done by forty 
years perusal of the pages. 

Tell me, and tell me truly, what you think 
of this theory. 

Yours, 

SPUNKIE. 



No. CLXXVTI. 
TO MISS K 

MADAM, 

Permit me to present you with the enclosed 
song as a small though grateful tribute for the 
honouv of your acquaintance. I have, in these 
verses, attempted some faint sketches of your 
portrait in the unerabellished simple manner of 
descriptive truth. — Flattery, I leave to your 
i.ovERS, whose exaggerating fancies may make 
them imagine you still nearer perfection than 
you really are. 

Poets, INIadam, of all mankind, feel most for- 
cibly the powers of beauty ; as, if they are 
really poets of nature's makiog, their feelings 
must be finer, and their taste more delicate 
than most of the world. In the cheerful bloom 
of SPRING, or the pensive mildness of autumn; 
the grandeur of summer, or the hoary majesty 
of WINTER ; the poet feels a charm unknown to 
the rest of his species. Even the sight of a fine 
flower, or the company of a fine woman (by far 



the finest part of God's works below), liave 
sensations for the poetic heart that the herd of 

man are strangers to On this last account, 

Madam, 1 am, as in many other thing-", indebt- 
ed to Mr. Hamilton's kindness in introducing 
me to you. Your lovers may view you with a 
wish, I look on you with pleasure ; their hearts, 
in your presence, may glow with desire, mine 
rises with admiration. 

That the arrows of misfortune, hovv^ever they 
should, as incident to humanity, glance a slight 
wound, may never reach your lieart — that the 
snares of villany may never beset you in the 
road of life — that innocence may hand you by 
the path of honour to the dwelling of peace, 
is the sincere wish of him who has the honour 
to be, &c. 



No. CLXXVni. 
TO LADY GLENCAIRN. 

MY LADY, 

The honour you have done your poor poet, 
in writing him so very obliging a letter, and the 
pleasure the enclosed beautiful verses have given 
him, came very seasonably to his aid amid the 
cheerless gloom and sinking despondency of dis- 
eased nerves and December weather (supposed 
December, 1793). As to forgetting the family 
of Glencairn, Heaven is my witness with what 
sincerity I could use those old verses which please 
me more in their rude simplicity than the most 
elegant lines I ever saw. 

If thee Jerusalem I forget, 

Skill part from my right hand. — 

My tongue to my mouth's roof let cleave, 

If I do thee forget 
Jerusalem, and thee above 

My chief joy do not set ■ 

When I am tempted to do any thing impro- 
per, I dare not, because T look on myself as ac- 
countable to your ladyship and fomily. Now 
and then when I have the honour to be called 
to the tables of the great, if I happen to meet 
with any mortification from the stately stupidity 
of self-sufficient squires, or the luxuriant inso- 
lence of upstart nabobs, I get above the crea- 
tures by calling to remembrance that I am pa- 
tronized by the Noble House of Glencairn ; and 
at gala-times, such as New-year's day, a chris- 
tening, or the Kirn-night, when ray punch-bowl 
is brought from its dusty corner and filled up in 
honour of the occasion, I begin with, — The 
Countess of Glencairn ! My good woman with 
the enthusiasm of a grateful heart, next cries. 
My Lord ! and so the toast goes on until I end 
with Lady Harriet's little angel ! whose epi- 
thalamium I have pledged myself to write. 

When I received your ladyship's letter, I was 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



375 



just in the act of transcribing for you some verses 
I have lately composed ; and meant to have sent 
them my first leisure hour, and acquainted you 
with my late change of life. I mentioned to my 
lord, my fears concerning my farm. Those 
fears were indeed too true ; it is a bargain would 
have ruined me but for the lucky circumstance 
of my having an excise commission. 

People may talk as they please, of the igno- 
miny of the excise ; £50 a year will support 
my wife and children and keep me independent 
of the world ; and I would much rather have it 
said that my profession borrowed credit from me, 
than that I borrowed credit from my profession. 
Another advantage I have in this business, is 
the knowledge it gives me of the various shades 
of human character, consequently assisting me 
vastly in my poetic pursuits. I had the most 
ardent enthusiasm for the muses when nobody 
knew me, but myself, and that ardour is by no 
means cooled now that my Lor(l Glencairn's 
goodness has introduced me to all the world. 
Not that I am in haste for the press. I have no 
idea of publishing, else I certainly had consulted 
my noble generous patron ; but after acting the 
part of an honest man, and supporting my fa- 
mily, my whole wishes and views are directed 
to poetic jtursuits. I am aware that though I 
were to give performances to the world superior 
to my former works, still if they were of the 
same kind with those, the comparative recep- 
tion they would meet with would mortify me. 
I have turned my thoughts on the drama. I do 
not mean the stately buskin of the tragic muse. 



Does not your ladyship think that an Edinburgh 
theatre would be more amused with affectation, 
folly and whim of true Scottish growth, than 
manners which by far the greatest part of the 
audience can only know at second hand ? 
I have the honour to be 

Your ladyship's ever devoted 
And grateful humble servant. 



a talent for, poetry ; none ever despised it who 
had pretensions to it. The fates and characters 
of the rhyming tribe often employ my thoughts 
when I am disposed to be melancholy. There 
is not, among all the martyrologies that ever 
were penned, so rueful a narrative as the lives of 
the poets. — In the comparative view of wretches, 
the criterion is not what they are doomed to suf- 
fer, but how they are formed to bear. Take a 
being of our kind, give him a stronger imagi- 
nation and a more delicate sensibility, which be- 
tween them will ever engender a more ungovern- 
able set of passions than are the usual lot of man ; 
implant in him an irresistible impulse to some idle 
vagary, such as, arranging wild flowers in fan- 
tastical nosegays, tracing the grasshopper to his 
haunt by his chirping song, watching the frisks 
of the little minnows in the sunny pool, or 
hunting after the intrigues of butterflies— in 
short, send him adrift after some pursuit which 
shall eternally mislead him from the path of 
lucre, and yet curse him with a keener relish 
than any man living, for the plasures that lucre 
can purchase ; lastly, fill up the measure of his 
woes by bestowing on him a spurning sense of 
his own dignity, and you have created a wight 
nearly as miserable as a poet. To you. Madam, 
I need not recount the fairy pleasures the muse 
bestows to counterbalance this catalogue of evils. 
Bewitching poetry is like bewitching woman ; 
she has in all ages been accused of misleading 
mankind from the counsels of wisdom and the 
paths of prudence, involving them in difficulties, 
baiting them with poverty, branding them with 
infamy, and plunging them in the whirling vor- 
tex of ruin ; yet where is the man but must own 
that all happiness on earth is not worthy the 
name — that even the holy hermit's solitary pros- 
pect of paradisaical bliss is but the glitter of a 
northern sun, rising over a frozen region, com- 
pared with the many pleasures, the nameless 
raptures that we owe to the lovely Queen of the 
heart of Man ! 



No. CLXXIX. 
TO MISS CHALMERS. 

MADAM, August, 1793. 

Some rather unlooked-for accidents have pre- 
vented my doing myself the honour of a second 
visit to Arbiegland, as I was so hospitably invit- 
ed, and so positively meant to have done. — 
However, I still hope to have that pleasure be- 
fore the busy months of harvest begin. 

I enclose you two of my late pieces, as some 
kind return for the pleasure I have received in 
perusing a certain IMS. volume of poems in the 
possessi(jn of Captain Riddel. To repay one 
with an old sony, is a proverb, whose force you. 
Madam, I know will not allow. What is said 
of illustrious descent is, I bcUevc, equally true of 



No. CLXXX. 

TO JOHN M'MURDO, Esq. 

SIR, December, 1793. 

It is said that we take the greatest liberties 
with our greatest friends, and I pay myself a 
very high compliment in the manner in which 
I am going to apply the remark. I have owed 
you money longer than ever I owed it to any 
man. — Here is Ker's account, and here are six 
guineas ; and now, I don't owe a shilling to 
man — or woman either. But for these damned 
dirty, dog's ear'd little pages,* I had done my- 
self the honour to have waited on you long ago. 
Independent of the obligations your hospitality 



* Scottish banknotes. 



376 



BUiaNS' WORKS. 



has laid me under, the consciousness of youi" su- 
periority in the rank of man and gentleman, of 
itself was fully as much as I could ever make 
head against ; but to owe you money too, was 
more than I could face. 

I think I once mentioned something of a col- 
lection of Scotch songs I have for some years 
been making : I send you a perusal of what I 
have got together. I could not conveniently 
spare them above five or six days, and five or 
six glances of them will probably more than suf- 
fice you. A very few of them are my own. 
When you are tired of them, please leave them 
with Mr. Clint, of the King's Arms. There is 
not another copy of the collection in the world ; 
and I shall bo sorry that any unfortunate negli- 
gence should deprive me of what has cost me a 
good deal of pains. 



LETTERS, 1794, 1795, 1796. 

No. CLXXXI. 
TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN, 

WITH A COPY OF " BRUCE's ADDRESS TO HIS 
TROOPS AT BANNOCKBURN." 

MY LORD, Dumfries, 12th Jan. 1794. 

Will your lordship allow me to present you 
with the enclosed little composition of mine, as 
a small tribute of gratitude for that acquaint- 
ance with which you have been pleased to ho- 
nour me. Independent of my enthusiasm as a 
Scotsman, I have rarely met with any thing in 
history which interest my feelings as a man, 
equal with the story of Bannockburn. On the 
one hand, a cruel, but able usurper, leading on 
the finest army in Europe to extinguish the last 
spark of freedom among a greatly-daring, and 
greatly-injured people : on the other hand, the 
desperate relics of a gallant nation, devoting 
themselves to rescue their bleeding country, or 
perish with her. 

Liberty ! thou art a prize truly, and indeed 
invaluable ! — for never canst thou be too dearly 
bought ! 

I have the honour to be, &c. 



No. CLXXXIL 
TO MRS. RIDDEL, 

WHO WAS TO BESPEAK A PLAY ONE EVENING 
AT THE DUMFRIES THEATRE. 

I AM thinking to send my Address to some 
periodical publication, but it has not got your 
sanction, so pray look over it. 

As to the Tuesday's play, let »ie beg of you, 



my dear Madam, let me beg of you to give us. 
The Wonder, a Woman keeps a Secret ; to 
which please add. The Spoiled Child — you will 
highly oblige me by so doing. 



Ah, what an enviable creature 



you are 



There now, this cursed gloomy blue-devil day, 
you are going to a party of choice spirits — 

" To play the shapes 
Of frolic fancy, and incessant form 
Those rapid pictures, that assembled train 
Of fleet ideas, never join'd before. 
Where lively wit excites to gay surprise ; 
Or folly, painting humour, grave himself, 
Calls laughter forth, deep-shaking every nerve." 

But as you rejoice with them that do rejoice, 
do also remember to weep with them that weep, 
and pity your melancholy friend. 



No. CLXXXIII. 
TO A LADY, 

IN FAVOUR OF A PLAYEr's BENEFIT. 
MADAM, 

You were so very good as to promise me to 
honour my friend with your presence on his 
benefit-night. That night is fixed for Friday 
first : the play a most interesting one ! The 
war) to keep Him. I have the pleasure to know 
Mr. G. well. His merit as an actor is gene- 
rally acknowledged. He has genius and worth 
which would do honour to patronage : he is a 
poor and modest man ; claims which, from 
their very silence, have the more forcible power 
on the generous heart. Alas, for pity ! that, 
from the indolence of those who have the good 
things of this life in their gift, too often does 
brazen-fronted importunity snatch that boon, 
the rightful due of retiring, humble, want ! Of 
all the qualities we assign to the author and di- 
rector of Nature, by far the most enviable is — 
to be able " To wipe away all tears from all 
eyes." O what insignificant, sordid wretches 
are they, however chance may have loaded them 
with wealth, who go to their graves, to their 
magnificent mausoleums^ with hardly the con- 
sciousness of having made one poor honest heart 
happy ! 

But I crave your pardon, Madam ; I came to 
beg, not to preach. 



No. CLXXXIV. 

EXTRACT OF A LETTER 

TO MR. 



r94.. 



I \u extremely oblig-ed to you for your kind 
meutioa of niy interests, in a letter which Mr 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



377 



S showed me. At present, my situation 

in life must be in a great measure stationaiy, 
at least for two or three years. The statement 
is this — I am on the supervisor's list ; and as 
we come on there by precedency, in two or 
three years I shall be at the head of that list, 
and be appointed nf cotirse — then a Friend 
might be of service to me in getting me into a 
place of the kingdom which I would like. A 
supervisor's income varies from about a hundred 
and twenty, to two hundred a-year ; but the 
business is an incessant drudgery, and would be 
nearly a complete bar to every species of litera- 
ry pursuit. The moment 1 am appointed su- 
pervisor in the common routine, I may be no- 
minated on the collector's list ; and this is al- 
ways a business purely of political j)atronage. A 
collectorship varies much, from better than two 
hundred a-year to near a thousand. They also 
come forward by precedency on the list, and 
have, besides a handsome income, a life of com- 
plete leisure. A life of literary leisure, with a 
a decent competence, is the summit of my wish- 
es. It would be the prudish aflectation of silly 
pride in me, to say that I do not need or would 
not be indebted to a political friend ; at the 
same time, Sir, I by no means lay my affairs 
before you thus, to hook my dependent situa- 
tion on your benevolence. If^ in my progress 
of life, an opening should occur where the good 
offices of a gentleman of your public character 
and political consequence might bring me for- 
ward, I will petition your goodness with the 
same frankness and sincerity as I now do my- 
self the honour to subscribe myself, &c. 



No. CLXXXV. 



TO MRS. RIDDEL. 



DEAR MADAM, 

I MEANT to have called on you yesternight, 
but as I edged up to your box-door, the lirst 
object which greeted my view, was one of those 
lobster-coated puppies, sitting like another dra- 
gon, guarding the Hesperian fruit. On the 
conditions and capitulations you so obligingly 
offer, I shall certainly make my weather-beaten 
rustic phiz a part of your box-furniture on 
Tuesday, when we may arrange the business of 
the visit. 



Among the profusion of idle compliments 
which insidious craft, or unmeaning folly inces- 
santly offers at your shrine — a shrine, how far 
exalted above such adoration — permit me, were 
it but for rarity's sake, to pay you the honest 
tribute of a warm heart, and an independent 
mind ; and to assure you, that I am, thou most 
amiable, and most accomplished of thy sex, 
with the most respectful esteem, aud fervent re- 
gard, thine, &c. 



No. CLXXXVL 

TO THE SAME. 

I wiM, wait on you, my ever-valued ftiend, 
but whether in the morning I am not sure. 
Sunday closes a period of our curst revenue bu- 
siness, and may probably keep me employed 
with my pen until noon. Fine employment for 
a poet's pen ! There is a species of the human 
genus that I call the (/in-horse class : what en- 
viable d(>gs they are. Round, and round, and 
round they go, — Mundell's ox that drives his 
cotton mill, is their exact prototype — without 
an idea or a wish beyond their circle : fat, 
sleek, stupid, patient, quiet, and contented ; 
while here I sit, altogether Novemberish, a d — 
melange of fretfulness and melancholy ; not 
enough of the one to rouse me to passion, nor 
of the other to repose me in torpor ; my soul 
flouncing and fluttering round her tenement, 
like a wild finch, caught amid the horrors of 
winter, and newly thrust into a cage. Well, I 
am {jcrsuaded that it was of me the Hebrew 
sage prophesied, when he foretold — " And be- 
hold, on whatsoever this man doth set his heart, 
it shall not prosper !" If my resentment is awak- 
ened, it is sure to be where it dare not squeak ; 
and if — 



Pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent 
visitors of 

R. B. 



No. CLXXXVII. 
TO THE SAME. 

I HAVE this moment got the song from 

S , and I am soriy to see that he has spoilt 

it a good deal. It shall be a lesson to me how 
I lend him any thing again. 

I have sent you Werter, truly happy to have 
any the smallest opportunity of obliging you. 

'Tis true, INIadam, I saw you once since I 

was at W ; and that once froze the very 

life-blood of my heart. Your reception of me 
was such, that a wretch meeting the eye of his 
judge, about to pronounce sentence of death on 
him, could only have envied my feelings and si- 
tuation. But I hate the theme, and never more 
shall write or speak on it. 

One thing I shall proudly say, that I can pay 
Mrs. a higher tribute of esteem, and ap- 
preciate her amiable worth more truly, than any 
man whom I have seen approach, her. 



378 



BURNS' WORKS. 



No. CL5^XVIII. 
TO THE SAME. 

I HAVE often told you, my deai' friend, that 
you had a spice of caprice iu your composition, 
and you have as often disavowed it, even per- 
haps while your opinions were, at the moment, 
irrefragably proving it. Could any thmg es- 
trange me from a friend such as you ? — No ! 
To-morrow I shall have the honour of waiting 
on you. 

Farewell, thou first of friends, and most ac- 
complished of women ; even with all thy little 
caprices ! 



No. CLXXXIX. 
TO THE SAME. 

MADAM, 

I RETURN your common-place book. I have 
perused it with much pleasure, and would have 
continued my criticisms, but as it seems the 
critic has forfeited your esteem, his strictures 
must lose their value. 

If it is true that " oifences come only from 
the heart," before you I am guiltless. To ad- 
mire, esteem, and prize you, as the most accom- 
plished of women, and the first of friends — if 
these are crimes, I am the most oifending thing 
alive. 

In a face where I used to meet the kind com- 
placency of friendly confidence, now to find cold 
neglect, and contemptuous scorn — is a wrench 
that my heart can ill bear. It is, however, 
some kind of miserable good luck ; that while 
de-haut-en-bas rigour may depress an unoffend- 
ing wretch to the ground, it has a teittiency to 
rouse a stubborn something in his bosom, which, 
though it cannot heal the wounds of his soul, is 
at least an opiate to blunt their poignancy. 

With the profoundest respect for your abili- 
ties ; the most sincere esteem, and ardent re- 
gard for your gentle heart and amiable manners ; 
and the most fervent wish and prayer for your 
welfare, peace, and bliss, I have the honour to 
be, Madam, your most devoted humble servant. 



No. CXC. 

TO JOHN SYME, Esq. 

You know that among other high dignities, 
you have the honour to be my supreme court 
of critical judicature, from which there is no 
appeal. I enclose you a song which I compos- 
ed since I saw you, and I am going to give you 
the history of it. Do you know that among 
mucli that I admire in the characters and man- 



ners of those great folks whom I iiave now the 

honour lo call my acquaintances, the O ■ 

family, there is nothing charms me more thaa 
than Mr. O's unconcealable attachment to that 
incomparable woman. Did you ever, my dear 
Syme, meet with a man who owed more to the 
Divine Giver of all good things than I\Ir. O. ? 
A fine fortune ; a pleasing exterior ; self-evident 
amiable dispositions, and an ingenious upright 
mind, and that informed too, much beyond the 
usual run of young fellows of his rank and for- 
tune ; and to all this, such a woman ! — but of 
her I shall say nothing at all, in despair of say- 
ing any thing adequate : in my song, I have en- 
deavoured to do justice to what would be his 
feelings on seeing, in the scene I have drawn, 
the habitation of his Lucy. As I am a good 
deal pleased with my performance, I in my first 

fervour thought of sending it to Mrs. O , 

but on second thoughts, perhaps v/hat I offer as 
the honest incense of genuine respect, might, 
from the well-known character of poverty and 
poetry, be construed into some modification or 
other of that servility which my soul abhors*. 



CXCI. 

TO MISS — 



MADAM. 

Nothing short of a kind of absolute necessi- 
ty could have made me trouble you with this 
letter. Except ray ardent and just esteem for 
your sense, taste, and worth, every sentiment 
arising in my breast, as I put pen to paper to you, 
is painful. The scenes I have passed with the 
friend of my soul, and his amiable connexions ! 
The wrench at my heart to think that he is 
gone, for ever gone from me, never more to 
meet in the wanderings of a weary world ; and 
the cutting reflection of all, that I had most un- 
fortunately, though most undeservedly, lost the 
confidence of that soul of worth, ere it took its 
flight. 

These, Madam, are sensations of no ordinary 

anguish However, yon, also, may be offended 

with some imputed improprieties of mine ; sen- 
sibility you know I possess, and sincerity none 
will deny me. 

To oppose those prejudices which have been 
raised against me, is not the business of this 
letter. Indeed it is a warfare I know not how 
to wage. The powers of positive vice I can in 
some degree calculate, and against direct male- 
volence I can be on my guard ; but who can 
estimate the fatuity of giddy caprice, or ward 
off the unthinking mischief of precipitate folly ? 

I have a favour to request of you, IMadaniy 
and of your sister Mrs. , through your 



* The song enclosed was the one beginning with,' 
" O wat ye wha's in yon town." 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



379 



means. You know, that, at the wish of my late 
friend, I made a collection of all my trifles in 
verse which I had ever written. They are ma- 
ny of tlicni local, some of them puerile, and sil- 
ly, and all of them unfit for the puhlic eye. As 
I have some little fame at stake, a fame that I 
trust may live, when the hate of those who 
" watch for my halting," and the contumelious 
sneer of those whom accident has made my su- 
periors, will, with themselves, be gone to the 
regions of oblivion ; I am uneasy now for the 

liite of those manuscripts. — Will IMrs have 

the goodness to destroy them, or return them to 
me ? As a pledge of friendship they were be- 
stowed ; and that circumstance, indeed, was all 
their merit. Most unhappily for me, that me- 
rit they no longer possess, and I hope that Mrs. 

's goodness, which I well know, and ever 

will revere, will not refuse this favour to a man 
whom she once held in some degree of estima- 
tion. 

With the sincerest esteem I have the honour 
to be, Madam, &c. 



No. CXCII. 
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

A MIND DISEASED. 

25th February, 1794. 
Cakst thou minister to a mind diseased ? 
Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tossed 
on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to 
guide her course, and dreading that the next 
surge may overwhelm her ? Canst thou give to 
a frame, tremblingly alive to the tortures of sus- 
pense, the stability and hardihood of the rock 
that braves the blast ? If thou canst not do the 
least of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in 
my miseries, with thy inquiries after me ? 



For these two months I have not been able to 
lift a pen. My constitution and frame were, ah 
origine, blasted with a deep incurable taint of 
hypochondria, xvhich poisons my existence. Of 
late a number of domestic vexations, and some 

pecuniary share in the ruin of these times ; 

losses which, though trifling, were yet what I 
could ill bear, have so irritated me, that my 
feelings at times could only be envied by a re- 
probate spirit listening to the sentence that 
dooms it to perdition. 

Are you deep in the language of consolation ? 
I have exhausted in reflection every topic of 
comfort. A. heart at ease would have been 
charmed with my sentiments and reasonings ; 
but as to myself, I was like Judas Iscariot 
preaching the gospel ; he might melt and mould 
the hearts of those around him, but his own 
kept its native incorrigibility. 

Still there are two great pillars that bear us 



up, amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. 
The ONE is composed of the different modifica- 
tions of a certain noble, stubborn something ;n 
man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, 
magnanimity. Tlie otheu is made up of those 
feelings and sentiments, Vihich, however the 
sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast dis- 
figure them, are yet, I am convinced, original 
and component parts of the human soul ; those 
senses of the mind, if I may be allowed tlie 
exjjression, which connect us with, and link 
us to, those awful obscure realities — an all- 
powerful and equally beneficent God ; and a 
world to come, beyond death and the grave. 
The first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray 
of hope beams on the field ; — the last pours the 
balm of comfort into the wounds which time 
can never cure. 

I do not remember, my dear Ctmningham, 
that you and I ever talked on the subject of re- 
ligion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as 
the trick of the crafty few, to lead the nndis- 
cerning si any ; or at most as an uncertain ob- 
scurity, which mankind can never know any 
thing of, and with which they are fools if they 
give themselves much to do. Nor would I 
quarrel with a man for his irreligion, any more 
than I would for his want of a musical ear. I 
would regret that he was shut out from what, 
to me and to others were such superlative sources 
of enjoyment. It is in this point of view, and 
for this reason, that I will deeply imbue the 
mind of every child of mine with religion. If 
my son should happen to be a man of feeling, 
sentiment, and taste, I shall thus add largely to 
his enjoyments. Let me flatter myself that this 
sweet little fellow who is just now running 
about my desk, vv-ill be a man of a melting, ar- 
dent, glowing heart ; and an imagination, de- 
lighted" with the painter, and rapt with the 
poet. Let me figure him, wandering out in a 
sweet evening, to inhale the balmy gales, and 
enjoy the growing luxuriance of tiie spring ; 
himself the while in the blooming youth of life. 
He looks abroad on all nature, and through na- 
ture up to nature's God. His soul, by swift, 
delighting degrees, is wrapt above this sublu- 
nary sphere, until he can be silent no longer, 
and bursts out into the glorious enthusiasm of 
Thomson. — 

" These, as they change. Almighty Father, these 
Are but the varied God. — The rolling year 
Is full of thee." 

And so on, in all the spirit and ardour of that 
charming hymn. 

These are no ideal pleasures ; they are real 
delights, and I ask what of the delights among 
the sons of men are superior, not to say, equal 
to them ? And they have this precious, vast ad- 
dition, that conscious virtue stamps them for 
her own ; and lays hold on them to bring her- 
self into the presence of a witnessing, judging, 
and approving God. 



380 



BURNS' WORKS. 
No. cxciir. No. CXCIV. 

TO TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 



SUPPOSES HIMSELF TO BE WRITING FROM THE 
DEAD TO THE LIVING. 



MADAM, 

I DARE say this is the first epistle you ever 
received from this nether world. I write you 
from the regions of Hell, amid the horrors of 
the damned. The time and manner of ray lea- 
ving your earth I do not exactly know ; as I 
took my departure in the heat of a fever of in- 
toxication, contracted at your too hospitahle 
mansion ; but on my arrival here, I was fairly 
tried and sentenced to endure the purgatorial 
tortures of this infernal confine, for the space of 
ninetj'-nine years, eleven months, and twenty- 
nine days ; and all on account of the improprie- 
ty of my conduct yesternight under your roof. 
Here am I, laid on a bed of pitiless furze, with 
my aching head reclined on a pillow of ever 
pierciug thorn, while an infernal tormentor, 
wrinkled, and old, and cruel, his uapjc, I think 
is Recollection, with a whip of scorpions, for- 
bids peace or rest to approach me, and keeps 
anguish eternally awake. Stiil, INIadam, if I 
could in any measure be reinstated in the good 
opinion of the fair circle whom my conduct last 
night so much injured, I think it would be an 
alleviation to my torments. For this reason I 
trouble you vvith this letter. To the men of 
the company I will make no apology. — Your 
husband, who insisted on my drinking more 
than I chose, has no riglit to blame me ; and 
the other gentlemen were partakers of my guilt. 
But to you, IVIadam, I have much to apologize. 
Your good opinion I valued as one of the great- 
est acquisitions I had made on earth, and I was 
trulv a beast to forfeit it. There was a Miss 

I^ too, a woman of fine sense, gentle and 

unassuming manners — do make, on my part, a 
miserable d — d wretch's best apology to her. A 

Mrs. G , a charming woman, did me the 

honour to be prejudiced in my favour ; this 
makes me hope that I have not outraged her 
beyond all forgiveness. — To all the other ladies 
please present my humblest contrition for ray 
conduct, and my petition for their gracious par- 
don. O all ye powers of decency and decorum ! 
whisper to them that my errors, though great, 
were involuntary — that an intoxicated man is 
the vilest of beasts- — that it was not in my na- 
ture to be brutal to any one — that to be rude to 
a woman, when in my senses, was impossible 
with me — but — 



MY LORD, 

When you cast your eye on the name at the 
bottom of this letter, and on the title page of 
the book I do myself the honour to send your 
lordship, a more pleasurable feeling than my va- 
nity tells me, that it must be a name not entire- 
ly unknown to you. The generous patronage 
of your late Illustrious brother found me in the 
lowest obscurity : he introduced my rustic muse 
to the partiality of my country ; and to him I 
owe all. My sense of his goodness, and the 
anguish of my soul at losing my truly noble 
protector and friend, I have endeavoured to ex- 
press in a poem to his memory, which I have 
now published. This edition is just from the 
press ; and in my gratitude to the dead, and my 
respect for the living (fame belies you, my lord, 
if you possess not the same dignity of man, 
which was your noble brother's characteristic 
feature), I had destined a copy for the Earl of 
Glencairn. I learnt just now that you are in 
town : — allow me to present it to you. 

I know, my lord, such is the vile, venal con- 
laglnn which peivades the world of letters, 
that professions of respect from an author, par- 
ticularly from a poet, to a lord, are more than 
suspicious. I claim my by-past conduct, and 
my feelings at this moment, as exceptions to the 
too just conclusion. Exalted as are the honours 
of your lordship's name, and unnoted as is the 
obscurity of mine ; with the uprightness of ao 
honest man, I come before your lordship, with 
an oft'ering, however humble, 'tis all I have to 
give, of my grateful respect ; and to beg of you, 
my lord, — 'tis all I have to ask of you, that you 
will do me the honour to accept of it. 

I have the honour to be, &c. * 



Regret ! Remorse ! Shame \ ye three hell- 
hounds that ever dog my steps' and bay at my 
heels, spare me ! spare me ! 

Forgive the offences, and pity the perdition 
of, Madam, your humble slave. 



No. CXCV. 
TO DR. ANDERSON, 

AUTHOR OF THE LIVES OF THE tOETS. 



I AIM much indebted to my worthy friend 
Dr. Blacklock for introducing me to a gentle- 
man of Dr. Anderson's celebrity ; but when you 
do me the honour to ask my assistance in vour 
purposed publication, Alas, Sir ! you might as 
well think to cheapen a little honesty at the 
sign of an Advocate's wig, or humility under 
the Geneva band. I am a miserable hurried 
devil, worn to the marrow in the friction of 



» The original letter is in the possession of the Ho- 
nourable Mrs. Holland of Poynings. From a memo- 
randum on the back of the letter, it appears to have 
ijeen written in May 1794. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



381 



holding the noses of the poor publicans to the 
grindstone of Excise ; and like Milton's Satan, 
for private reasons, am forced 

" To do what yet tlio* dam'd 1 would db- 
hore;"^ 

and except a couplet or two of honest execration 



No. CXCVI. 



TO MRS. DUNLOP 



Castle Douglas, 5th June, 1794. 
Here in a solitary inn, in a solitary village, 
am I set by myself, to amuse my brooding fancy 
as I may. — Solitary confinement, you know, is 
Howard's favourite idea of reclaiming sinners ; 
so let me consider by what fatality it happens 
that I have so long been exceeding sinful as to 
neglect the correspondence of the most valued 
friend I have on earth. To tell you that I have 
been in poor health, will not be excuse enough, 
though it is true. I am afraid I am about to 
suffer for the follies of my youth. My medical 
friends threaten me with a flying gout ; but I 
trust they are mistaken. 

I am just going to trouble your critical pa- 
tience with the first sketch of a stanza 1 have 
been framing as I paced along the road. The 
subject is liberty : You know, my honoured 
friend, how dear the theme is to me. I design 
it an irregular Ode for General Washington's 
birth-day. After having mentioned the dege- 
neracy of other kingdoms, I come to Scotland 
thus: 

( See Poems, p. 77. ) 

You will probably have another scrawl from 
me in a stage or two. 



No. cxcvn. 

TO MR. JAMES JOHNSON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

You should have heard from me long ago ; 
but over and above some vexatious share in the 
pecuniary losses of these accursed times, I have 
all this winter been plagued with low spirits 
and blue devils, so that / have almost hung my 
harp on the willow trees. 

I am just now busy correcting a new edition 
of my poems, and this, with my ordinary busi- i 
ness, finds me iu full employment.* I 

♦ Dums's anxiety with regard to the correctness of j 
his writings was very gro.if.. Rcing questioned as to ' 
his mcKle of composition, he replied, " All my poetry 
is (he etfect of easy composition, bist of laborious cor- 
'rctioji.'' 



I send you by my friend Mr. Wallace forty- 
one songs for your fifth volume ; if wo cannot 
finish it any other way, what would you think 
of Scots words to some beautiful Irish airs ? 
In the meantime, at your leisure, give a copy 
of the Museum to my worthy friend Mr. Peter 
Hill, bookseller, to bind for me, interleaved 
with blank leaves, exactly as he did the laird 
of Glenriddel's,* that I may insert every anec- 
dote I can learn, together with my own criti- 
cisms and remarks on the songs. — A copy of 
this kind I shall leave with you, the editor, to 
publish at some after period, by way of making 
the Museum a book famous to the end of time, 
and you renowned for ever. 

I have got an Highland dirk for which I have 
great veneration ; as it once was the dirk of 
Ijord Balmerino. It fell into bad hands, who 
stripped it of the silver mounting, as well as 
the knife and fork. I have some thoughts of 
sending it to your care, to get it mounted anew. 

Thank you for the copies of my Volunteer 
Ballad. — Our friend Clarke has done indeed 
well ! It is chaste and beautiful. I have not 
met with any thing that has pleased me so 
much. You know, I am no connoisseur ; but 
that I am an amateur — will be allowed me. 



No. CXCVIII. 

TO PETER MILLER, Jun. EsQ.f 
OF DALSWINTON. 

DEAR SIR, Dumfries, Nov. 1794. 

Your offer is indeed truly generous, and raos;t 
sincerely do I thank you for it ; but in my pre- 
sent situation, I find that I dare not accept it. 
You well know my political sentiments ; and 
were I an insular individual, unconnected with 
a wife and a family of children, with the most 
fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my 
services : I then could and would have despised 
all consequences that might have ensued. 

My prospect in the Excise is something ; at 
least, it is, encumbered as I am with the wel- 
fare, the very existence, of near half-a-score 
of helpless individuals, what I dare not sport 
with. 

In the mean time, they are most welcome to 



* This IS the manuscript book containing the re- 
marks on Scottish songs and ballads, jircsentod to the 
public. With considerable additions, in this volume. 

t In a conversation with his friend Mr. Perry, (the 
proprietor of " The Morning Chronicle"), Mr. I\Iiller 
represented to that gentleman the insufficiency of 
Buriu's salary to answer the imperious dem^dsof a 
numerous family. In their sympathy for his misfor- 
tunes, and in thir regret that his talent.s were nearly 
lost to the world of letters, these gentlemen agreed on 
the jilaii of setthng him in London. 

To aetomi)lish this most desirable olycct, Mr. Perry, 
very spiritedly, made the poet a handsome offer of an 
annual stipend for the exercise of his talents in his 
newspaper. Bunis's reasons for refusing this oflcr are 
stated iu the present letter— Cromf.k. 



382 



BURNS' WORKS. 



my Ode ; only, let them insert it as a thing 
thev have met with by accident and unknown 
to me. — Nay, if ]Mr. Perry, whose honour, af- 
ter your character of him I cannot doubt ; if 
he will give me an address and channel by which 
any thing will come safe from those spies with 
which he may be certain that his correspon- 
dence is beset, I will now and then send him 
any bagatelle that I may write. In the present 
hurry of Europe, nothing but news and politics 
will be regarded ; but against the days of peace, 
which Heaven send soon, my little assistance 
may perhaps fill up an idle column of a News- 
paper. I have long had it in my head to try 
my hand in the way of little prose essays, which 
I propose sending into the world through the 
medium of some Newspaper ; and should these 
be worth his while, to these INIr. Perry shall 
be welcome ; and all my reward shall be, his 
treating me with his paper, which, by the bye, to 
any body who has the least relish for wit, is a 
high treat indeed. 

With the most grateful esteem, I am ever, 
Dear Sir, &c. 



No. CXCIX. 

TO GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. 

MY DEAR SIR, Dumfries. 

It is indeed with the highest satisfaction that 
I congratulate you on the return of " days of 
ease, and nights of pleasure," after the horrid 
hours of misery, in which I saw you suffering 
existence when I was last in Ayrshire. I sel- 
dom pray for any body. " I'm baith dead 
sweer, and wretched ill o't." But most fervent- 
ly do I beseech the great Director of this world, 
that you may live long and be happy, but that 
you may live no longer than while you are 
happy. It is needless for me to advise you to 
have a reverend care of your health. I know 
you will make it a point never, at one time, to 
drink more than a pint of wine; (I mean an 
English pint), and that you will never be wit- 
ness to more than one bowl of punch at a time ; 
and that cold drams you will never more taste. 
I am well convinced too, that after drinking, 
perhaps boiling punch, you will never mount 
your horse and gallop home in a chill, late hour. 
— Above all things, as I understand you are 
now in habits of intimacy with that Boanerges 
of gospel powers. Father Auld, be earnest with 
him that he will wrestle in prayer for you, that 
you may see the vanity of vanities in trusting 
to, or even practising the carnal moral works 
of charity, humanity, generosity, and furgive- 
ness ; things which you practised so flagrantly 
that it was evident you delighted in them ; ne- 
glecting, or perhaps, prophanely despising the 
wholesome doctrine of " Faith without works, 
the only anchor of salvation," 



A hymn of thanksgiving would, in my opi 
nlon, be highly becoming from you at present , 
and in my zeal for your well-being, I earnestly 
press it on you to be diligent in chanting over 
the two enclosed pieces of sacred poesy. My 
best compliments to Mrs. Hamilton and IMiss 
Kennedy. 

Yours in the L, d 

R. B. 



No. CC. 



TO MR. SAMUEL CLARKE, 

Dumfries. 



JuN. 



DEAR SIR, Sunday Morning. 
I WAS, I know, drunk last night, but I am so- 
ber this morning. From the expressions Capt. 
-, made use of to me, had I had no- 



body's welfare to care for but my own, we should 
certainly have come, according to the manners 
of the world, to the necessity of murdering one 
another about the business. The words were 
such as, generally, I believe, end in a brace of 
pistols ; but I am still pleased to think that I 
did not ruin the peace and welfare of a wife and 
a family of children in a drunken squabble. 
Farther you know that the report of certain 
political opinions being mine, has already once 
before brought me to the brink of destruction. 
I dread lest last night's business may be mis- 
represented in the same way. — You, I beg, 
will take care to prevent it. I tax your wish 
for Mrs. Burns's welfare with the task of wait- 
ing as soon as possible, on every gentleman 
who was present, and state this to him, and, as 
you please, shew him tliis letter. What, after 
all, was the obnoxious toast? " May our suc- 
cess in the present war be equal to the justice 
of our cause." — A toast that the most outrage- 
ous frenzy of loyalty cannot object to. I request 
and beg that this morning you will wait on the 
parties present at the foolish dispute. I shall 
only add, that I am truly sorry that a man who 

stood so high in my estimation as Mr. , 

should use me in the manner in which I con- 
ceive he has done.* 



* At this period of our Poet's life, when political 
animosity was made the ground of private quarrel, the 
following foolish verses were sent as an attack on 
Burns and his friends for their political opinions. 
They were wTitten by some member of a club styling 
themselves the Loyal Xtitives of Dumfries, or rather 
by the united genius of that club, which was more dis- 
tuiguished for drunken loyalty, than either for re- 
spectability or poetical talent. The verses were hand- 
ed over the table to Uurns at a convivial meeting, and 
he instantly indorsed the subjoined reply. 

The Loyal Natives' Verses. 

Yc sons of sedition give ear to my song, 

Let Syme, Burns, and Maxwell, pervade every 

throng, 
With, Cracken the attoniey, and Mundell Ihc quack. 
Send Willie the monger to hell with a smack. 



CORRESPONDENCE, 



383 



No. CCI. 
TO MR. ALEXANDER FINDLATER, 

SUPERVISOR OF EXCISE, DUMFRIES. 



ExcLOSED are the two scliemes. I would 
not have troubled you with the collector's one, 
but for suspicion lest it be not rii^ht. ]Mr. Ers- 
kine promised me to make it right, if you will 
have the f^oodnes to shew him how. As I have 
no copy of the scheme for myself, and the alter- 
ations being; very considerable from what it was 
formerly, I hope that I shall have access to this 
scheme I send you, when I come to face up my 

new books. So much fur schemes And that 

no scheme to betray a frieno, or mislead a 
STRANGER ; to scducc a YOUNG GIRL, or lob 
a HENROOST ; to subvert liberty, or bribe an 
exciseman; to disturb the general assem- 
bly, or annoy a gossipping ; to overthrow the 
credit of orthodoxy, or the authority of old 
SONGS ; to oppose your wishes, or frustrate mi/ 
hopes — MAY prosper — is the sincere wish and 
prayer of 

ROBT. BURNS. 



No. ecu. 

TO THE EDITORS OF THE MORNING 
CHRONICLE.* 

gentlemen, Dumfries. 

You will see by your subscribers' list, that 
I have now been about nine months one of that 
number. 

I am sorry to inform you, that in that time, 
seven or eight of your papers either have nevei 
been sent me, or else have never reached me. 
To be deprived of any one number of the first 
newspaper in Great Britain for information. 



ability and independence, is what I can ill brook 
and bear ; but to be deprived of that most ad- 
mirable oration of the Manpiis of Lansdowne, 
when he made the great, though ineffectual at- 
tempt, (in the language of the jjoet, I fear too 
true,) " to save a sinking state" — this was 
a loss which I neither can, nor will forgive you. 
— That paper. Gentlemen, never reached me ; 
but I demand it of you. I am a briton ; and 
must be interested in the cause of liberty : — 
I am a :man ; and the rights of human na- 
ture cannot be indifferent to me. However, 
do not let me mislead you : I am not a man in 
that situation of life, which, as your subscriber, 
can be of any consequence to you, in the eyes 
of those to whom situation of like alone 

is the criterion of man 1 am but a plain 

tradesman, in this distant, obscure country 
town : but that humble domicile in which I 
shelter my wife and children, is the castellum 
of a briton ; and that scanty, hard-earned in- 
come which supports them, is as truly my pro- 
perty, as the most magnificent fortune, of the 
most puissant member of your house of 

1 NOBLES. 

These, Gentlemen, are my sentiments ; and 
to them I subscribe my name : and were I a 
man of ability and consequence enough to ad- 
dress the PUBLIC, with that name should they 
appear. 

I am, &c. 



i?Krn«— extempore. 

Ve true " Loyal Natives" attend to my song. 

In uproar and riot rejoice the night long; 

From envy and liatred your corps is exempt ; 

IJut where is your shield from the darts of contempt ? 

* This letter owes its origin to the following cir- 
cuinstiuiee. A neighbour of the Poet's at Dun\frics, 
called on him and eomijlained that he was greatly dis- 
appointed in the irregular delivery of the Pai)er of 
The Morning Chronicle. IJurns asked, " Why do 
not you write to the Editors of the Paper ?" Good 
God, Sir, can I i)rcsume to write to tlie learned Edi- 
tors of a Newspaper ?— Well, if t/om are afraid of writ- 
ing to the Editors of a Newspaper / am not; and if 
you think iiroper, I'll draw up a sketch of a letter, 
which you may copy. 

Hums tore a leaf from his excise book and instantly 
produced the sketch which I have transcribed, and 
which is here printed. The i)oor man thanked him, 
and took the letter home. However, that caution 
which the watchfulness of his enemies had taught him 
to exercise, prompted him to the prudence of begging 
a friend to wait on the person for whom it was writ- 
ten, and recjuest the favour to have it returned. This 
request was complied with, and tlic paper never ap- 
peared in print. 



No. CCIII. 

TO COL. W. DUNBAR. 

I AM not gone to Elysium, most noble Co- 
lonel, but am still here in this sublunary world, 
serving my God by propagating his image, and 
honouring my king by begetting him loyal sub- 
jects. JMany happy returns of the season await 
my friend ! IMay the thorns of care never be- 
set .his path ! May peace be an inmate of his 
bosom, and rapture a frequent visitor of his 
soul ! May the blood-hounds of misfortune ne- 
ver trace his steps, nor the screech-owl of sor- 
row alarm his tlwelllug ! ]May enjoyment tell 
thy hours, and pleasure number thy days, thou 
friend of the Bard ! Blessed be he that bless-^ 
eth thee, and cursed be he that curseth thee ! 



No. CCIV. 
TO MISS FONTENELLE, 

accompanying a PROLOGUE TO BE SPOKEN 
FOR HER BENEFIT. 
MADAM, 

In such a bad world as ours, those who add 
to the scanty sum of our pleasures, are posi- 



384. 



BURNS' WORKS. 



lively our benefactors. To you, Madam, ou 
our humble Dumfries boards, I have been more 
indebted for entertainment than ever I was in 
prouder theatres. Your charms as a woman 
would insure applause to the most indifferent 
actress, and your theatrical talents would insure 
admiration to the plainest figure. This, Madam, 
is not the unmeaning, or insidious compliment 
of the frivolous or interested ; I pay it from the 
same honest impulse that the sublime of nature 
excites my admiration, or her beauties give me 
delight. 

Will the foregoing lines be of any service to 
you on your approaching benefit night ? If they 
will, I shall be prouder of my nmse than ever. 
They are nearly extempore : I know they have 
no great merit ; but though they should add but 
little to the entertainment of the evening, they 
give me the happiness of an opportunity to de- 
clare how much I have the honour to be, &c. 

ADDRESS. 

Spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her henefit- 
night, Dec. 4, 1795, at the Theatre, Durri' 
fries. 

Still anxious to secure your partial favour, 
And not less anxious, sure, this night than ever, 
A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter, 
'Twould vamp my bill, said T, if nothing better; 
So, sought a Poet, roosted near the skies. 
Told him, I came to feast my curious eyes ; 
Said, nothing like his works was ever printed ; 
And last, my prologue-business slily hinted. — 
*' Ma'am, let me tell you," quoth my man of 

rhymes : 
" I know your bent — these are no laughing 

times : 
Can you — but Miss, I own I have my fears, 
Dissolve in pause — and sentimental tears — 
With laden sighs, and solemn rounded sentence, 
Rouse from his sluggish slumbers fell Repent- 
ance ; 
Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand 
Waving on high the desolating brand. 
Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty 
land !" 

I could no more — askance the creature eyeing. 
D'ye think, said I, this face was made for cry- 

ing? 
I'll laugh, that's poz — nay, more, the world 

shall know it ; 
And so, your servant — gloomy Master Poet. 

Firm as my creed. Sirs, 'tis my fix'd belief. 
That Misery's another word for Grief: 
I also think. — so may I be a bride ! 
That so much laughtei', so much life eujoy'd — 

Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh, 
Still under bleak misfortune's blasting eye ; 
Doom'd to that sorest task of man alive — 
Tomake three guineas do the work of five : 



Laugh in Misfortune's face — the beldam witch ! 
Say, you'll be merry, though you can't be rich. 

Thou other man of care, the wretch in love, 
Who long with jiltish arts and airs hast strove ; 
Measur'st in desperate thought — a rope — ^thy 

neck — 
Or, where the beetling cliff o'erhangs the deep, 
Peerest to meditate the healing leap : 
Would' st thou be cured, thou silly, moping elf. 
Laugh at heir follies — laugh e'en at thyself : 
Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific, 
And love a kinder — that's your grand speci- 
V fie— 

To sura up all, be merry, I advise ; 
And as we're merry, may we still be wise. — 



No. CCV. 
TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, \bth December, 1794. 

As I am in a complete Decembrish humour, 
gloomy, sullen, stupid, as even the deity of Dul- 
ness herself should wish, I shall not drawl out a 
heavy letter with a number of heavier apologies, 
for my late silence. Only one I shall mention, 
because I know you will sympathize in it : these 
four months, a sweet little girl, my youngest 
child, has been so ill, that every day, a week or 
less threatened to terminate her existence. There 
had much need be many pleasures annexed to 
the states of husband and father, for God knows, 
they have many peculiar cares. I cannot de- 
scribe to you the anxious, sleepless hours these 
ties frequently give me. I see a train of helpless 
little folks ; me and my exertions all their stay ; 
and on what a brittle thread does the life of mau 
hang ! If I am nipt off at the command of fate ; 
even in all the vigour of manhood as I am, such 
things happen every day — gracious God ! what 
would become of my little flock ! 'Tis here thac 

I envy your people of fortune A father on his 

death-bed, taking an everlasting leave of his 
children, has indeed woe enough ; but the man 
of competent fortune leaves his sons and daugh- 
ters independency and friends ; while I — but I 
shall run distracted if I think any longer on the 
subject ! 

To leave talking of the matter so gravely, I 
shall sing with the old Scots ballad — 

" O that I had ne'er been married, 
I would never had nae care ; 
Now I've gotten wife and bairns, 
They cry, crowdie, evermair. 

Crowdle ! ance ; crowdie ! twice ; 

Crowdie ! three times in a day : 
An ye crowdie ony mair. 

Ye' 11 crowdie a' my meal away.'*— 



CORRESPON'DENCE. 



385 



December '•ZUIi. 
We have liail a liiilliaiit theatre iiere, this ^^ca- 
son ; only, as all other business lias, it experi- 
ences a stairiiation of trade from the epidemical 
complaint of the country, icant of amh. I men- 
tion our theatre merely to luc; in an occasional 
Address, whicli 1 wrote for the henefit-night of 
one of the actresses, and which is as follows : — 
( «See Address, p. 38 k^ 

2hth, Cftristmas, Morninf/. 

Ttrrs, my much-loved fiiend, is a morning of 
\vislies : accejjt mine — so Heaven hear me as 
they are sincere ! that blessings may attend your 
steps, and affliction know you not ! In the 
charming words of my favourite author, The 
Man of Feeling, " jNlay the great spirit bear up 
the weight of thy grey hairs ; and blunt the ar- 
row that brings them rest !" 

Now that I talk of authors, how do you like 
Cowper ? is not the Task a glorious poem ? The 
religion of the Task, bating a few scraps of Cal- 
vinistic divinity, is the religion of God and Na- 
ture : the religion that exalts, that ennobles man. 
Were not you to send me your Zeluco in return 
for mine ? Tell me how you like my marks and 
notes through the book. I would not give a far- 
thing for a book, unless I were at liberty to blot 
it with ray criticisms. 

I have lately collected, for a friend's perusal, 
all my letters ; I mean those which I first 
sketched, in a rough draught, and afterwards 
wrote out fair. On looking over some old musty 
papers, which from time to time I had parcelled 
by, as trash that were scarce worth preserving, 
and which yet, at the same time, I did not care to 
destroy, I discovered many of those rude sketches, 
and have written, and am writing them out, in 
a bound MS. for my friend's library. As I 
wrote always to you the rhapsody of the moment, 
I cannot find a single scroll to you, except one, 
about the commencement of our acquaintance. 
If there were any possible conveyance, I would 
send you a perusal of my book. 



No. CCVI. 

TO MR. HERON, OF HERON. 

SIR, 1794., or 1795. 

I ENCLOSE you some copies of a couple of po- 
litical ballads ; one of which, I believe, you have 
never seen. Would to Heaven I could make 
you master of as many votes in the Stewartry. 
But— 

" Who does the utmost that he can. 
Does well, acts nobly, angels could no more." 

In order to bring my humble efforts to bear 
with more effect on the foe, I have privately 
Dtinted a good many copies of both ballads, and 



have sent them among friends all about the coun- 
try. 

'J'o pillory on Parnassus the rank rei)robation 
of character, the utter dereliction of all ])rinci- 
ple, in a profligate junto which has not only 
outraged virtue, but violated common decency , 
which, spurning even hypocrisy as paltry ini- 
quity below their daring ; — to unmask their fla- 
gitiousness to tlie broadest day — to deliver such 
over to their merited f ite, is surely not merely 
innocent, but laudable ; is not only propriety, 
but virtue. — You have already, as your auxilia- 
ry, the sober detestation of mankind on the 
heads of your opponents ; and I swear l)y the 
lyre of Thalia to muster on your side all the vo- 
taries of honest laughter, and fair, candid ridi- 
cule ! 

I am extremely obliged to you for your kind 
mention of my interests in a letter which Mr. 
Syme shewed me. At present, my situation in 
life must be in a great measure stationary, at 
least for two or three years. The statement is 
this — I am on the supervisors' list, and as we 
come on there by precedency, in two or three 
years I shall be at the head of that list, and be 
appointed, of course. Then a friend might 
be of service to me in getting me into a place 
of the kingdom which I would like. A super- 
visor's income varies from about a hundred and 
twenty, to two hundred a year ; but the busi- 
ness is an incessent drudgery, and would be 
nearly a complete bar to every species of litera- 
ry pursuit. The moment I am appointed su- 
pervisor, in the common routine, I may be no- 
minated on the collector's list ; and this is al- 
ways a business purely of political patronage. 
A collectorship varies much, from better than 
two hundred a year to near a thousand. They 
also come forward by precedency on the list ; 
and have besides a handsome income, a life of 
complete leisure. A life of literary leisure with 
a decent competence, is the summit of my wishes. 
It would be the prudish affectation of silly pride 
in me to say that I do not need, or would not 
be indebted to a political friend ; at the same 
time, Sir, I by no means lay my affairs before 
you thus, to hook my dependant situation on 
your benevolence. If, in my progress of life, 
an opening should occur where the good offices 
of a gentleman of your public character and po- 
litical consequence might bring me forward, 
shall petition your goodness with the same 
frankness as I now do myself the honour to sub- 
scribe myself, &c*. 



» Part of this letter appears in Dr. Currie'a td. vo*. 
ii. p. 450. 



70 



386 



BURNS' WORKS. 



No. CCVII. 
ADDRESS OF THE SCOTS DISTILLERS, 

TO 

THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT. 



While pursy burgesses crowd your gate, 
sweating under the weight of heavy addresses, 
permit us, the quondam distillers in that part 
of Great Britain called Scotland, to approach 
you, not with venal approbation, but with fra- 
ternal condolence ; not as what you are just 
now, or for some time have been ; but as what, 

in all probability, you will shortly be We shall 

have the merit of not deserting our friends in 
the day of their calamity, and you will have the 
satisfaction of perusing at least one honest ad- 
dress. You are well acquainted with the dis- 
section of human nature ; nor do you need the 
assistance of a fellow-creature's bosom to inform 
vou, that man is always a selfish, often a perfi- 
dious being This assertion, however the hasty 

conclusions of superficial observation may doubt 
of it, or the raw inexperience of youth may de- 
ny it, those who make the fatal experiment we 
have done, will feel. You are a statesman, and 
consequently are not ignorant of the traffic of 
these corporation compliments. — The little great 
man who drives the borough to market, and the 
very great man who buys the borough in that 
market, they two do the whole business ; and 
you well know, they, likewise, have their price. 
— With that sullen disdain which you can so 
well assume, rise, illustrious Sir, and spurn 
these hireling efforts of venal stupidity. At best 
they are the compliments of a man's friends on 
the morning of his execution : They take a de- 
cent farewell ; resign you to your fate ; and hur- 
ry away from your approaching hour. 

If fame say true, and omens be not very much 
mistaken, you are about to make your exit from 
that world where the sun of gladness gilds the 
paths of prosperous men : permit us, great Sir, 
with the sympathy of fellow-feeling to hail your 
passage to the realms of ruin. 

Whether the sentiment proceed from the sel- 
fishness or cowardice of mankind is immaterial ; 
but to point out to a child of misfortune those 
who are still more unhappy, is to give him some 
degree of positive enjoyment. In this light, Sir, 
our downfal may be again useful to you: — 
Though not exactly in the same way, it is not 
perhaps the first time it has gratified your feel- 
ings. It is true, the triumph of your evil star 
is exceedingly despiteful. — At an age when 
others are the votaries of pleasure, or underlings 
m business, you had attained the highest wish 
of a British Statesman ; and with the ordinary 
date of human life, what a prospect was before 
you ! Deeply rooted in Royal Favour, you 
overshadowed the land. The birds of passage, 
which follow ministerial sunshine through every 



clime of political faith and manners, flocked to 
your branches ; and the beasts of the field, (the 
lordly possessors of hills and vallies, ) crowded 
under your shade. " But behold a watcher, a 
holy one came down from heaven, and cried 
aloud, and said thus : Hew down the tree, and 
cut off his branches ; shake off his leaves, and 
scatter his fruit ; let the beasts get away from 
under it, and the fowls from his branches!" A 
blow from an unthought-of quarter, one of those 
terrible accidents which peculiarly mark the 
hand of Omnipotence, overset your career, and 
laid all your fancied honours in the dust. But 
turn your eyes, Sir, to the tragic scenes of our 
fate. — An ancient nation that for many ages 
had gallantly maintained the unequal struggle 
for independence with her much more powerful 
neighbour, at last agrees to a union which should 
ever after make them one people. In consi- 
deration of certain circumstances, it was cove- 
nanted that the former should enjoy a stipulat- 
ed alleviation in her share of the public bur- 
dens, particularly in that branch of the revenue 
called the Excise. This just privilege has of 
late given great umbrage to some interested, 
powerful individuals of the more potent part of 
the empire, and they have spared no wicked 
pains, under insidious pretexts, to subvert what 
they dared not openly to attack, fi-om the dread 
which they yet entertained of the spirit of their 
ancient enemies. 

In this conspiracy we fell ; nor did we alone 
suffer, our country was deeply wounded. A 
number of (we will say) respectable individuals, 
largely engaged in trade, where we were not 
only useful but absolutely necessary to our ctmn- 
try in her dearest interest ; we, with all that 
was near and dear to us, were sacrificed with- 
out remorse, to the infernal deity of political ex- 
pediency ! We fell to gratify the wishes of dark 
envy, and the views of unprincipled ambition ! 
Your foes. Sir, were avowed ; were too brave 
to take an ungenerous advantage ; you fell in 
the face of day. — On the contrary, our enemies, 
to complete our overthrow, contrived to make 
their guilt appear the villainy of a nation. — 
Youf downfal only drags with you your pri- 
vate friends and partizans : In our misery are 
more or less involved the most numerous, and 
most valuable part of the community — all those 
who immediately depend on the cultivation of 
the soil, from the landlord of a province, down 
to the lowest hind. 

Allow us. Sir, yet farther, just to hint at an- 
other rich vein of comfort in the dreary regiona 
of adversity ; — the gratulatious of an approving 
conscience. In a certain great assembly, of 
which you are a distinguished member, pane- 
gyrics on your private virtues have so often 
wounded your delicacy, that we shall not dis- 
tress you with any thing on the subject. There 
is, however, one part of your public conduct 
which our feelings will not permit us to pass 
in silence ; our gratitude must trespass on your 
modesty ; we mean, worthy Sir^ your whole 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



387 



behaviour to the Scots Distillers. — la evil hours, 

when obtrusive recollection presses bitterly on 

the sense, let that, Sir, come like a healing 

angel, and speak the peace to your soul which 

the world can neither give nor take away. 

We have the honour to be, 

Sir, 

Your sympathizing fellow-sufferers, 

And grateful humble Servants, 
John Barleycorn — Preses. 



No. CCVIII. 

TO THE HON. THE PROVOST, BAIL- 
IES, AND TOWN-COUNCIL OF DUM- 
FRIES. 

GENTLEMEN, 

The literary taste and liberal spirit of your 
good town has so ably filled the various depart- 
ments of your schools, as to make it a very 
great object for a parent to have his children 
educated in them. Still, to me, a stranger, with 
my large family, and very stinted income, to 
give my young ones that education I wish, at 
the high school-fees which a stranger pays, will 
bear hard upon me. 

Some years ago your good town did me the 

honour of making me an honorary burgess 

Will you allow me to request that this mark of 
distinction may extend so far, as to put me on 
the footing of a real freeman of the town, in 
the schools ? 



If you are so very kind as to grant my re- 
quest,* it will certainly be a constant incentive 
to me to strain every nerve where I can offi- 
cially serve you ; and will, if possible, increase 
that grateful respect with which I have the ho- 
nour to be, 

Grentlemen, 
Your devoted humble Servant, 



No. CCIX. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP, IN LONDON. 

Dumfries, 20th December, 1795. 
I HAVE been prodigiously disappointed in this 
London journey of yours. In the first place, 
■when your last to me reached Dumfries, I was 
in the country, and did not return until too 
late to answer your letter ; in the next place, 
I thought you would certainly take this route ; 
and now I know not what is become of you, or 
whether this may reach you at all. God grant 



that it may find you and yours in prospering 
health and good spirits. Do let me hear from 
you the soonest possible. 

As I hope to get a frank from my friend 
Captain Miller, I shall, every leisure hour, take 
up the pen, and gossip away whatever comes 
first, prose or poesy, sermon or song. In this 
last article, I have abounded of late. I have 
often mentioned to you a superb publication of 
Scottish songs which is making its appearance 
in your great metropolis, and where I have the 
honour to preside over the Scottish verse, as nc 
less a personage than Peter Pindar does over 
the English. I wrote the following for a fa- 
vourite air. 



December 29. 
Since I began this letter I have been ap- 
pointed to act in the capacity of supervisor here, 
and I assure you, what with the load of business, 
and what with that business being new to me, I 
could scarcely have commanded ten minutes to 
have spoken to you, had you been in town, 
much less to have written you an epistle. This 
appointment is only temporary, and during the 
illness of the present incumbent ; but I look 
forward to an early period when I shall be ap- 
pointed in full form : a consummation devout- 
ly to be wished ! My political sins seem to be 
forgiven me. 



This is the season (New-year's-day is now 
my date) of wishing ! and mine are most fer- 
vently offered up for you ! May life to you be a 
positive blessing while it lasts, for your own 
sake ; and that it may yet be greatly prolonged, 
is my wish for my own sake, and for the sake 
of the rest of your friends ! What a transient 
business is life ! Very lately I was a hoy ; but 
t'other day I was a young man ; and I already 
begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints 
of old age coming fast o'er my frame. With 
all my follies of youth, and, I fear, a few vices 
of manhood, still J congratulate myself on hav- 
ing had, in early days religion strongly impress- 
ed on my mind. I have nothing to say to any 
one as to which sect he belongs to, or what 
creed he believes ; but 1 look on the man who 
is firmly persuaded of iufinite wisdom and good- 
ness, superintendit'.g and directing every cir- 
cumstance that can happen in his lot — I felici- 
tate such a man as having a solid foundation for 
his mental enjoyment ; a firm prop and sure 
stay, in the hour of difficulty, trouble, and dis- 
tress ; and a never-failing anchor of hope, when 
he looks beyond the grave. 



* This request was immediately complied witli. 



Januarrj 12. 
You will have seen our worthy and ingeni- 
ous friend, the Doctor, long ere this. 1 hope 



388 



BURNS' WORKS. 



he is well, and beg to be remembered to bim. 
I have just beeu reading over again, I dare sajr 
for the hundred and liftieth time, his View of 
Society and 3Ianners ; and still I read it with 
delight. His humour is perfectly original — it 
is neither the humour of Addison, nor Swift, 
nor Sterne, nor of any body but Dr. Moore. 
By the bye, you have deprived me of Zduco ; 
remember that, when you are disposed to rake 
up the sins of my neglect from among the ashes 
of laziness. 

He has paid me a pretty compliment, by 
quoting me in his last publication. * 



No. CCX. 
TO MRS. RIDDEL. 

20<A January, 179G. 

I CANNOT express my gratitude to you for 
allowing me a longer perusal of Anacharsis. 
In fact, I never met with a book that bewitch- 
ed me so much ; and I, as a member of the li- 
brary, must warmly feel the obligation you have 
laid us under. Indeed to me the obligation is 
stronger than to any other individual of our so- 
ciety ; as A-iiadiar^is is an indispensable desi- 
deratum to a son of the muses. 

The health you wished me in your morning's 
card, is, I think, flown from me for ever, I 
have not been able to leave my bed to-day till 
about an hour ago. These wickedly unlucky 
advertisements I lent (I did wrong) to a friend, 
and I am ill able to go in quest of him. 

The muses have not quite forsaken me. The 
followiug detached stanzas I intend to interweave 
in some disastrous tale of a shepherd. 



No. CCXI, 

TO MRS, DUNLOP. 

S\st January, 1796, 
These many months you have been two 
packets in my debt — what sin of ignorance I 
have committed against so highly valued a 
friend, I am utterly at a loss to guess, Alas ! 
Madam, ill can I aiford, at this time, to be de- 
prived of any of the small remnant of my plea- 
sures. I have lately drunk deep of the cup of 
affliction. The autumn robbed me of my only 
daughter and darling child, and that at a dis- 
tance too, and so rapidly, as to put it out of my 
power to pay the last the duties to her, I had 



scarcely begun to recover from that shock, when 
I became myself the victim of a most severe 
rheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful ; 
until after many weeks of a sick-bed, it seems 
to have turned up life, and I am beginning to 
crawl across my room, and once indeed have 
been before my own door in the street. 

When pleasure fascinates the mental sight, 

Affliction purities the visual ray, 
Religion hails the drear, the untried night, 

That shuts, for ever shuts ! life's doubtful 
day. 



CCXII. 



TO MRS. RIDDEL, 

WHO HAD DKSIREn HIM TO GO TO THE BIRTH- 
HAY ASSEMBLY ON THAT DAY TO SHEW HIS 
LOYALTY. 

Uh June, 1796. 
I AM in such miserable health as to be utter- 
ly incapable of showing my loyalty in any way. 
Racked as I am with rheumatisms, I meet every 
face with a greeting like that of Balak to Ba- 
laam — " Come curse me Ja(U)b ; and come de- 
fy me Israel ,'" So say I — Come curse me that 
east wind ; and come, defy me the north ! 
Would you have me, in such circumstances, to 
copy you out a love song ? 



I may perhaps see you on Saturday, but I 
will not be at the ball. — Why should I ? " man 
dehghts not me, nor woman either !" Can you 
supply me with the song, Let us all he unhap- 
py together? — do if you can, and oblige le 
pauvre miserable R. B. 



Edward, 



No. CCXIIL 

TO MR. JAMES JOHNSON, Edinburgh, 

Dumfries, July 4, 1796, 
Plow are you, my dear friend, and how comes 
on your fifth volume ? You may probably 
think that for some time past I have neglected 
you and your work ; but, alas ! the hand of 
pain, and sorrow, and care, has these many 
months lain heavy on me ! Personal and do- 
mestic affliction have almost entirely banished 
that alacrity and life with which I used to woo 
the rural muse of Scotia. 



You are a good, worthy, honest fellow, and 
have a good right to live in this world — because 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



389 



you deserve it. Many a merry meeting this 
publication has f(Iven us, and possible it may 
give us more, though, alas ! I fear it. This 
protracting, slow, consuming illness which 
hangs over me, will, I doubt much, my ever 
dear friend, arrest my sua before he has well 
reached his middle career, and will turn over 
the poet to far other and more important con- 
cerns than studying the brilliancy of wit, or the 
pathos of sentiment ! However, hope is the 
cordial of the human heart, and I endeavour to 
cherish it as well as I can. 

Let me hear from you as soon as convenient. 
— Your work is a great one ; and now that it 
is near finished, I see, if we wore to begin 
again, two or three things that might be mend- 
ed ; yet I will venture to prophecy, that to fu- 
ture ages your publication will be the text- 
book and standard of Scottish song and music. 

I am ashamod to ask another favour of j'ou, 
because you have been so very good already ; 
but my wife has a very particular friend of hers, 
a young lady who sings well, to whom she 
wishes to present the Scots Musical Museum. * 
If you have a spare copj', will you be so oblig- 
ing as to send it by tlie very first Fly, as I am 
anxious to have it soon. 

Yours ever, 
ROBERT BURNS. 



No. CCXIV. 
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 

Brow, Sea-bathing Quarters, Ith July, 1796. 

MY DEAR CUNNINGHA.M, 

I RECEivKD yours here this moment, and am 
indeed highly flattered with the approbation of 
the literary circle you mention ; a literary circle 
inferior to none in the two kingdoms. AJas ! 
my friend, I fear the voice of the bard will soon 
be heard among you no more ! for these eight or 
ten months I have been ailing, sometimes bed- 
fast and sometimes not ; but these last three 
months I have been tortured with an excruciat- 
ing rheumatism, which has reduced me to near- 
ly the last stage. You actually would not know 
me if you saw me. Pale, emaciated, and so 
feeble, as occasionally to need help from my chair 
— my spirits fled ! fled ! — but I can no more on 
the subject — only the medical folks tell me that 
my last and only chance is bathing and country 



« In this humble and delicate manner did poor 
Burns ask for a copy of a work of which he was i)rin- 
fipally the founder, and to which he had contributed, 
gratuitomly, not less than 184 original, altered, and 
collected songs! The Editor has seen 180 transcribed 
by his own liand, for the Muserim. 

This letter was written onthe4lh of July,— the poet 
died on the 21st. No other letters of this interesting 
period have been disco\ ered, except one addressed to 
Mrs. Dunlop, of the 12th of July, which Dr. Ciirrie 
very properly supposes to be the last production of the 
dying bard.— Ckomek. 



quarters, and riding. The deuce of the matter 
is this ; when an exciseman is off duty, his sa- 
lary is reduced to jC35 instead of £.bQ — What 
way, in the name of thrift, shall I maintain my- 
self and keep a horse in country quarters — with 
a wife and five children at home, on ^635 ? I 
mention this, because 1 had intended to beg your 
utmost Interest, and that of all the friends you 
can umster, to move our Commissoners of Ex- 
cise to grant me the full salary. I dare say you 
know them all personally. If they do not grant 
it me, I must lay my account with an exit truly 
en pode — if I die not of disease, I must perish 
with hunger. 

I have sent you one of the songs ; the other 
my memory does not serve me with, and I have 
no copy here ; but I shall be at home soon, 
when I will send it you. Apropos to being at 
home, Mr.e. Burns threatens in a week or two 
to add one more to my paternal charge, which, 
if of the right gender, I intend shall lu; introduc- 
ed to the world by the respectable designation of 
Alexander Cunninyham Burns : My last was 
James Glencairn ,- so you can have no objec - 
tion to the company of nobility. Farewell. 



No. CCXV. 



TO MRS BURNS. 



MY DEAREST LOVE, Brow, Thursday. 

I DELAYED Writing imtil I could tell you 
what efl'ect sea-battiing was likely to produce. 
It would be injustice to deny that it has eased 
my pains, and I think has strengthened nie ; 
but my appetite is still extremely bad. No flesh 
nor fish can I swallow ; porridge and milk lue 
the only thing I can taste. 1 am very happy to 
hear, by Miss Jess Lewars, that you are well. 
My very best and kindest compliments to her 
and to all the children. I will see vou OJi Sun- 
day. Your affectionate husband, R. B. 



CCXVI. 

TO MRS. DUNLOP. 

MADAM, I2th July, 179G. 

T HAVE written you so often, without recei- 
ving any answer, that I would not trouble you 
again, but for the circumstances in which I am. 
An illness wliich has long hung about me, in 
ail probability will speedily send me beyond that 
hdurne whence no traveller returns. Your 
friendship, with which for many years you ho- 
noured me, was a friendship dearest to my soul. 
Your conversation, and especially your corre- 
spondence, were at ouce highly entertaining and 
instructive. With what pleasure did I use to 
break up the seal ! The remembrance yet adds 



390 



BURNS' WORKS. 



one pulse more to my poor palpitating heart. 
Farewell ! ! ! 

R. B. 



The above is supposed to be the last produc- 
tion of Robert Burns, who died on the 21st 
of the mouth, nine days afterwards. He had, 
however, the pleasure of receiving a satisfactory 
explanation of his friend's silence, and an assur- 
ance of the continuance of her friendship to his 



widow and children ; an assurance that has been 
amply fulfilled. 

It is probable that the greater part of her let- 
ters to him were destroyed by our bard about 
the time that this last was written. He did 
not foresee that his own letters to her were to 
appear in print, nor conceive the disappoint- 
ment that will be felt, that a few of this excel- 
lent lady's have not served to enrich and adorn 
the collection. 



391 



THE POET'S CORRESPONDENCE 



WITH 



MR. GKORGE THOMSON 



The Poet, besides his ample contributions to the Musical Museum, published by Johnson, en- 
gaged in the somewhat similar, but far more extended undertaking of Mr. George Thomson, 
entitled Select Melodies of Scotland, — a Work more systematically planned, and scientifically 
executed, as to the Music — and more chastened in the composition and sentiment of the 
Songs, than any of its precursors ; and which still maintains its superiority over all other col- 
lections as the National Repertory of Scottish Song, both as to the poetry and music. The 
following Correspondence shews the rise and progress, with much of the interesting details 
of our Poet's contributions to Mr. Thomson's Work : — 



No. I. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET, 

SOLICITING HIS CO-OPERATION. 

SIR, Edinburgh, September 1792. 

For some years past, I have, with a friend or 
two, employed many leisure hours in selecting 
and collating the most favourite of our national 
melodies for publication. We have engaged 
Pleycl, the most agreeable composer living, to 
put accompaniments to these, and also to com- 
pose an instrumental prelude and conclusion to 
each air, the better to fit them for concerts, both 
public and private. To render this work per- 
fect, we are desirous to have tlie poetry impro- 
ved, wherever it seems unworthy of the music ; 
and that it is so in many instances, is allowed 
by every one conversant with our musical col- 
lections. The editors of these seem in general 
to have depended on the music proving an ex- 
cuse for the verses ; and hence, some charming 
melodies are united to mere nonsense and dog- 
grel, while others are accommodated with rhymes 
so loose and indelicate, as cannot be sung in de- 
cent company. To remove this reproach, would 
be an easy task to the author of The Cotter's 
Saturday Night ,- and, for the honour of Cale- 
donia, I would fain hope he may be induced to 
take up the pen. If so, we shall be enabled to 
present the public with a collection infinitely 
more interesting than any that has yet appear- 
ed, and acceptable to all persons of taste, whe- 
ther they wish for correct melodies, delicate ac- 
companiments, or characteristic verses. — We 



will esteem your poetical assistance a particular 
favour, besides paying any reasonable price you 
shall please to demand for it. Profit is quite a 
secondary consideration with us, and we arc re- 
solved to spare neither pains nor expense on the 
publication. Tell me frankly, then, whether 
you will devote your leisure to writing twenty 
or twenty-five songs, suited to the particular 
melodies which I am prepared to send you. A 
few songs, exceptionable only in some of their 
verses, I will likewise submit to your considera- 
tion ; leaving it to you, either to mend these, 
or make new songs in their stead. It is super- 
fluous to assure you that I have no intention to 
displace any of the sterling old songs ; those 
only will be removed, which appear quite silly, 
or absolutely indecent. Even these shall all be 
examined by Mr. Burns, and if he is of opinion 
that any of them are deserving of the music, in 
such cases no divorce shall take place. 

Ridying on the letter accompanying this to be 
forgiven for the liberty I have taken in address- 
ing you, I am, with great esteem. Sir, your 
most obedient humble servant, 

G. THOMSON. 



No. II. 

THE POET'S ANSWER. 

SIR, Dumfries, ]6th Sept. 1792. 

I HAVE just this moment got your letter. Ah 
the request you make to me will positively add 



392 



BURNS' WORKS. 



to my enjoynieats in complying with it, I sIkiU 
enter into your undertaking with all the small 
portion of abilities I have, strained to their ut- 
most exertion by the impulse of enthusiasm. 
Only, don't hurry me : " Dell tak the hind- 
most" is by no means the cri de guerre of my 
muse. Will you, as I am inferior to none of 
you in enthusiastic attachment to the poetry and 
music of old Caledonia, and, since you request 
it, have cheerfully promised my mite of assist- 
ance — will you let me have a list of your airs, 
with the first line of the printed verses you in- 
tend for them, that I may have an opportunity 
of sugi^esting any alteration that may occur to 
me. You know 'tis in the way of my trade ; 
still leaving you, gentlemen, the undoubted right 
of publishers, to approve, or reject, at your plea- 
sure, for your own publication. Apropos ! if 
you are for English verses, there is, on my part, 
an end of the matter. Whether in the simplicity 
of the ballad, or the pathos of the song, I can 
only hope to please myself in being allowed at 
least a sprinkling of our native tongue. Eng- 
lish verses, particularly the works of Scotsmen, 
that have merit, are certainly very eligible. 
Tweedside ; Ah the poor shepherd's mournful 
fate ! Ah Chloris, could I now but sit, &c. 
you cannot mend : But such insipid stuff as, 
To Fanny fair could I impart, &c. usually set 
to The Mill, Mill O, is a disgrace to the col- 
lections in which it has already appeared, and 
would doubly disgrace a collection that will have 
the very superior merit of yours. But more of 
this in the farther prosecution of the business, 
if I am called on for my strictures and amend- 
ments — I say, amendments ; for I will not alter 
except where I myself at least think that I 
amend. 

As to any remuneration, you may think my 
songs either above or below price ; for they 
shall absolutely be the one or the other. In the 
honest enthusiasm with which I embark in your 
undertaking, to talk of money, wages, fee, hire, 
&c. would be downright prostitution of soul/ 
A proof of each of the songs that I compose or 
amend, I shall receive as a favour. In the rus- 
tic phrase of the season, " Gude speed the 
wark !" 

I am, Sir, your very humble Servant, 
R. BURNS. 

P. S. — I have some particular reasons for 
wishing my interference to be known as little as 
possible. 



No. III. 



MR. THOMSON IN REPLY. 

DEAR SIR, Edinburgh, I3th Oct. 1792. 

I RECEIVED, with much satisfaction, your 
pleasaat and obliging letter, and I return my 



warmest acknowledgments for the enthusiasm 
with which you have entered into our underta- 
king. We have now no doubt of being able to 
produce a collection, highly deserving of public 
attention, in all respects. 

I agree with you in thinking English verses, 
that have merit, very eligible, wherever new 
verses are necessary ; because the English be- 
comes every year, more and more, the language 
of Scotland ; but, if you mean that no English 
verses, except those by Scottish authors, ought 
to be admitted, I am half inclined to differ from 
you. I should consider it unpardonable to sa- 
crifice one good song in the Scottish dialect, to 
make room for English verses ; but, if we can 
select a few excellent ones suited to the unpro- 
vided or ill-provided airs, would it not be the 
very bigotry of literary patriotism to reject such 
merely because the authors were born south of 
the Tweed ? Our sweet air, Mg Nannie O, 
which in the collections is joined to the poorest 
stuff that Allan Ramsay ever wrote, beginning. 
While some for pleasure paw7i their health, an- 
swers so finely to Dr. Percy's beautiful song, 
O Nancy wilt thou go with me, that one would 
think he wrote it on purpose for the air. How- 
ever, it is not at all our wish to confine you to 
English verses : you shall freely be allowed a 
sprinkling of your native tongue, as you elegant- 
ly express it ; and moreover, we will patiently 
wait your own time. One thing only I beg, 
which is, that however gay and sportive the 
muse may be, she may always be decent. Let 
her not write what beauty would blush to speak, 
nor wound that charming delicacy which forms 
the most precious dowry of our daughters. I 
do not conceive the song to be the most proper 
vehicle for witty and brilliant conceits : simpli- 
city, I believe, should be its prominent feature ; 
but, in some of our songs, the writers have con- 
founded simplicity with coarseness and vulga- 
rity ; although, between the one and the other, 
as Dr. Beattie well observes, there is as great a 
difference as between a plain suit of clothes and 
a bundle of rags. The humorous ballad, or pa- 
thetic complaint, is best suited to our artless 
melodies ; and more interesting indeed in all 
songs than the most pointed wit, dazzling de- 
scriptions, and flowery fancies. 

With these trite observations, I send you eleven 
of the songs, for which it is my wish to substi- 
tute others of your writing. I shall soon trans- 
mit the rest, and, at the same time, a prospectus 
of the whole collection : and you may believe 
we will receive any hints that you are so kind 
as to give for improving the work, with the 
greatest pleasure and thankfulness. 

I remain, Dear Sir, &c. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



393 



No. IV. 
THE POET TO IMR. THOMSON, 

WITH " THE LEA- RIG." 
MY DEAR SlU, 

Let me tell you that you are too l";isti(lious 
iu vour ideas of songs and ballads. I own that 
your criticisms are just ; the songs you specify 
in your list have all hut one the faults you re- 
mark in them ; but who shall mend the matter? 
M'lio shall rise up and say — Go to, I will make 
a better ? For instance, on reading over 27te 
Lea-rig, I immediately set about trying my 
hand on it, and, after all, I co\ild make nothing 
more of it than the following, which, Heaven 
knows, is poor enough : 

{Seep, 244.) 

Vour observation as to the aptitude of Dr. 
Percy's ballail to the air Nannie O, is just. It 
is besides, perhaps, the most beautiful ballad in 
the English language. But let me remark to 
you, that, in the sentiment and style of our 
Scottish airs, there is a pastoral simj)licity, a 
something that one may call the Doric style and 
dialect of vocal music, to which a dash of our 
native tongue and manners is particularly, nay 
peculiarly, apposite. For this reason, and, upon 
my honour, for this reason alone, I am of opi- 
nion (but, as I told you before, my opinion is 
yours, freely yours, to approve, or reject, as you 
please), that my ballad of Nannie O might per- 
haps do for one set of verses to the tune. Now 
don't let it enter into your head, tl^dt you are 
under any necessity of taking my verses. I have 
long ago made up my mind as to my own re- 
putation in the business of authorship j and 
have Jiothing to be pleased or offended at, in 
your adoption or rejection of my verses. Though 
you should reject one half of what I give you, 
I shall be pleased with your adopting the other 
half, autl shall continue to serve you with the 
same assiduity. 

In the printed copy of ray Nannie O, the 
name of the river is horridly prosaic. I will 
alter it, 

" Behind yon hills where Lugar flows." 

Girvan is the name of the river that suits the 
idea of the stanza best, but Lugar is the most 
agreeable modulation of syllables. . 

I will soon give you a great many more re- 
marks on tliis business ; but 1 have just now 
an opportunity of conveying you this scrawl, free 
of postage, an expense that it is ill able to pay : 
so, with my best compliments to honest Allan, 
Good be wi' ye, &c. 

Friday niijht. 



morning before my conveyance goes away, I 
will give you Nannie O at length. 

{Sccp.2i3.) 

Your remarks on Ewc-huglits, Marion, are 
)ust : still it has obtained a place among our 
more classical Scottish songs ; and what with 
many beauties in its composition, and more pre- 
judices in its favour, you will not find it easy 
to supplant it. 

In my very early years, when I was thinking 
of going to the West Indies, I took the follow- 
ing farewell of a dear girl. It is quite trifling, 
and has nothing of the merits of JEwe-hughts ; 
but it will fill up this page. You must know, 
that all my earlier love-songs were the breath- 
Hugs of ardent passion, and though it might have 
been easy in after-times to have given them a 
polish, yet that polish, to me, whose they were, 
ar.d who perhaps alone cared for them, would 
have defaced the legend of my heart, which 
was so faithfully inscribed on them. Their un- 
couth simplicity was, as they say of wines, their 
race. 

( Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, p. 243.) 

Gala Water and Auld Rob Morris, I think, 
will most probably be the next subject of my 
musings. Howevei-, even on my verses, speak 
out your criticisms with equal frankness. I\Iy 
wish is, not to stand aloof, the uncomplying 
bigot of opiniatrete, but cordially to join issue 
with you iu the furtherance of the work. 



No. V. 



Saturday Morning. 
As I find 1 have still an hour to spare this 



THE POET TO MR THOMSON. 

November 8th, 1792. 
If you mean, my dear Sir, that all the songs 
in your collection shall be poetry of the first 
merit, I am afraid you will find more difficulty 
in the undertaking than you are aware of. 
There is a peculiar rhythnnis in many of our 
airs, and a necessity of adapting syllables to the 
emphasis, or what I would call the feature-notes 
of the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him 
under almost insuperable difficulties. For in- 
stance, in the air, My wife's a wanton wee 
thing, if a few lines smooth and pretty can be 
adapted to it, it is all you can expect. The 
following were made extempore to it; and 
though, on farther study, I might give you 
souiethiug more profound, yet it might not suit 
the light-horse gallop of the air so well as this 
random clink. 

(My wife's a winsome wee thing, p. 214.) 

I have just been looking over the Collier's 



394 



BURNS' WORKS. 



hojiJiy Dochter ; and if the following rlxapsody, 
which I composed the other day, on a charming 

Ayrshire girl, INIiss , as she passed through 

this place to England, will suit your taste het- 
ter than the Collier Lassie, fall on and wel- 
come. 

( O saio ye bonnie Lesslie, p. 194.) 

I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more 
pathetic airs, until more leisure, as they will take, 
and deserve, a greater effort. However, they 
are all put into your hands, as clay into the 
hands of the potter, to make one vessel to ho- 
nour, and another to dishonour. Farewell, &c. 



No. VI. 



THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

Ye banks, and braes, and streams around, 
The castle o' Montgomery. (Seep. 203. 

Mv DEAR SIR, lUh November, 1792. 

I AGREE with you that the song, Katherine 
Ogie, is very poor stuff, and unworthy, alto- 
gether unworthy, of so beautiful an air. I tried 
to mend it, but the awkward sound Ogie recur- 
ring so often in the rhyme, spoils every attempt 
at introducing sentiment into the piece. The 
foregoing song pleases rayself ; I think it is in 
my happiest manner ; you will see at first glance 
that it suits, the air. The subject of the song is 
one of the most interesting passages of my youth- 
ful days ; and, I own that I should be much 
flattered to see the verses set to an air which 
would insure celebrity. Perhaps, after all, 'tis 
the still glowing prejudice of my heart, that 
throws a borrowed lustre over the merits of the 
composition. 

I have partly taken your idea of Auld Hob 
Morns. 1 have adopted the two first verses, 
and am going on with the song on a new plan, 
which promises pretty well. I take up one or 
another, just as the bee of the moment buzzes 
iu my bonnet-lug ; and do you, sans, ceremonie, 
make what use yott choose of the productions. 
Adieu ! &c. 



No. VII. 



MR. THOMPSON TO THE POET. 

»EAR SIR, Edinburgh, Nov. 1792. 

I WAS just going to write to you, that on 
meeting with your Nannie I had fallen violent- 
ly in love with her. I thank you, therefore, for 
sending the charming rustic to mc, in the dress 
you wish her to appear befctre the public. She 
does you great credit, and will soon be admitted 
into the best company. 



1 regret tbat your song for the Lea-rig is so 
short ; the air is easy, soon sung, and very pleas- 
ing ; so that, if the singer stops at the end of 
two stanzas, it is a pleasure lost ere it is well 
possessed. 

Although a dash of our native tongue and 
manners is doubtless peculiarly congenial, and 
appropriate to our melodies, yet I shall be able 
to present a considerable number of the very 
Flowers of English Song, well adapted to those 
melodies, which in England at least will be the 
means of recommending them to still greater at- 
tention than they have procured there. But 
you will observe, my plan is, that every air shall 
in the first place have verses wholly by Scottish 
poets ; and that those of English writers shall 
follow as additional songs, for the choice of the 
singer. 

What you say of the Eice-bughts is just ; I 
admire it, and never meant to supplant it. All 
I requested was, that you would try your hand 
on some of the Inferior stanzas, which are appa- 
rently no part of the original song ; but this T 
do not urge, because the song is of sufficient 
length though those inferior stanzas be omitted, 
as they will be by the singer of taste. You must 
not think I expect all the songs to be of superla- 
tive merit; that were an unreasonable expecta- 
tion. I am sensible that no poet can sit down dog- 
gedly to pen verses, and succeed well at all times. 

I am highly pleased with your humorous and 
amorous rhapsody on Sonnie Lesslie ; it is a 
thousand times better than the Collier's Lassie.' 
" The deil he cou'dna s( aith thee," &c. is an ec- 
centric and happy thought. Do you not think, 
however, that the names of such old heroes as 
Alexander, sound rather queer, unless iu pom- 
pous or mere burlesque verse ? Instead of the 
line " And never made anither," I would hum- 
bly suggest, " And ne'er made sic anither ;" 
and I would fain have you substitute some other 
line for " Return to Caledonie," in the last 
verse, because 1 think this alteration of the or- 
thography, and of the sound of Caledonia, dis- 
figures the word, and renders it Hudibrastic. 

Of the other song. My wife's a winsome wee 
thing, I think the first eight lines very good : 
but I do not admire the other eight, because four 
of them are a bare repetition of the first verse. 
I have been trying to spin a stanza, but could 
make nothing better than the following ; do you 
mend it, or, as Yorick did with the love-letter, 
whip it up in your own way. 

O leeze me on my wee thing. 
My bonnie blythsome wee thing ; 
Sae lang's I hae my wee thing, 
I'll think my lot divine. 
Tho' warld's care we share o't, 
And may see meickle mair o't, 
Wi' her I'll blythly bear it. 
And ne'er a word repine. 



You perceive, my dear Sir, I avail mj^lf of 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



395 



the liberty which you condescend to allow me, 
by speaking freely what I think. Be assured, 
it is not my disposition to pick out the faults of 
any poem or picture I see : my first and chief 
object is to discover and be delighted with the 
beauties of the piece. If I sit down to examine 
critically, and at leisure, what perhaps you have 
written in haste, I miiy happen to observe care- 
less lines, the re- perusal of which might lead 
you to improve them. The wren will often see 
what has been overlooked by the eagle. 

I remain yours faithfully, &c. 

P. S. Your verses upon Highland Mary, are 
just come to hand : they breathe the genuine 
spirit of poetry, and, like the music, will last for 
ever. Such verses united to such an air, with 
the delicate harmony of Pleyel superadded, might 
form a treat worthy of being presented to Apollo 
himself. I have heard the sad story of your 
Mary : you always seem inspired when you write 
of her. 



No. VIII. 

THE POET TO MR. THOxMSON. 

Dumfries, \st Dcctmher, 1792. 
Your alterations of my Nannie O are per- 
fectly right. So are those of " My wife's a 
wanton wee thing." Your alteration of the 
second stanza is a positive improvement. Now, 
my dear Sir, with the freedom which charac- 
terises our correspondence, I must not, cannot 
alter " Bonnie Lesslie." You are right, the 
word " Alexander" makes the line a little un- 
couth, but I think the thought is pretty. Of 
Alexander, beyond all other heroes, it may be 
said, in the sublime language of scripture, that 
" he went forth conquering and to conquer." 

" For nature made her what she is, 
And never made auither," (such a person as 
she is. ) 

This is in my opinion more poetical than 
" Ne'er made sic anither." However, it is im- 
material : jMake it either way. " Caledouie," 
I agree with you, is not so good a word as could 
be wished, though it is sanctioned in three or 
four instances by Allan Ramsay ; but I cannot 
help it. In short, that species of stanza is the 
most difficult that I have ever tried. 

The " Lea-rig" is as follows. ( Hero the 
poet gives the two first stanzas as before, p. 2 14, 
with the following in addition.) 

The hunter loe's the morning sun, 
To rouse the mountain deer, my jo ; 

At noon the fisher seeks the glen, 
Along the burn to steer, my jo ; 



Gie me the hour o' gloamin grey, 
It mak's my heart sac cheery, O 

To meet thee on the lea- rig, 
JMy ain kind dearie, O. 

I am interrupted. Yours, &c. 



No. IX. 



THE PORT TO MR. THOMSON. 

(Anld Hub Morris, p. 192.) 
(Duncan Graij, p. 199.) 

4M December, 1792. 
The foregoing I submit, my dear Sir, to your 
better judgment. Acquit them or condemn 
them as seemcth good in your sight. Duncan 
Gray is that kind of light-horse gallop of an 
air, which precludes sentiment. The ludicrous 
is its ruling feature. 



No. X. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

{Poortith Cauld,p. 222.) 
( Galla Water, p. 201.) 

January 1793. 

Many returns of the season to you, my dear 
Sir. How comes on your publication ? will 
these two foregoing be of any service to you ? 
I should like to know what songs you print to 
each tune, besides the verses to which it is set. 
In short, I would wish to give you my opinion 
on all the poetry you publish. You know it 
is my trade, and a man in the way of his trade 
may suggest useful hints, that escape men of 
much superior parts and endowments in other 
things. 

If you meet with my dear and much valued 
C. greet him in my name, with the compliments 
of th«i season. 

Yours, &c. 



No. XL 



MR. THOMSON TO THE POET, 

WITH A POSTSCRIPT FKOM THE HON. A. ERSKINF. 

Edinburgh, Januanj 20th, 1793. 
Yor make me happy, my dear Sir, and thou- 
sands will be happy to see the charmiugs songs 
you have sent me. Many merry returns of the 
season to you, and may you long continue among 
the sons and daughters of Caledonia, to delight 
them, and to honour yourself. 



396 



BURNS'S WORKS. 



The four last songs with whicj^ you favoured 
me, viz. Auld Hob Morris, Dimcan Grau, 
Galla Water, and Cauld Kail, are admirable. 
Duncan is indeed a lad of grace, and liis humour 
will endear him to every body.. 

The distracted lover in. Auld Mob, and the 
happy shepherdess in Galla Water, exhibit an 
excellent contrast ; they speak from genuine 
feeling, and powerfully touch the heart. 

The number of songs which I had originally 
in view was limited, but I now resolve to in- 
clude every Scotch air and song worth sing- 
ing, leaving none behind but mere gleanings, 
to which the publishers of omnegatherum are 
welcome. I would rather be the editor of a 
collection from which nothing could be taken 
away, than of one to which nothing could be 
added. We intend presenting the subscribers 
with two beautiful stroke engravings ; the one 
characteristic of the plaintive, and the otber of 
the lively songs ; and I have Dr. Beattie's pro- 
mise of an essay upon the subject of our na- 
tional music, if his health will permit him to 
write it. As a number of our songs have doubt- 
less been called forth by particular events, or by 
the charms of peerless damsels, there must be 
many curious anecdotes relating to them. 

The late Mr. Tytler of Woodhouselee, I be- 
lieve, knew more of this than any body, for he 
joined to the pursuits of an antiquary, a taste 
for poetry, besides being a man of the world, 
and possessing an enthusiasm for music beyond 
most of his contemporaries. He was quite plea- 
sed with this plan of mine, for I may say, it 
has been solely managed by me, and we had se- 
veral long conversations about it, when it was in 
embryo. If I could simply mention the name 
of the heroine of each song, and the incident 
which occasioned the verses, it would be grati- 
fying. Pray, will you send me any information 
of this sort, as well with regard to your own 
.songs, as the old ones ? 

To all tl>e favourite songs of the plaintive or 
pastoral kind, will be joined the delicate accom- 
paniments, &c, of Pleyel. To those of the co- 
mic or humorous class, I think accompaniments 
scarcely necessary ; they are chiefly fitted for 
the conviviality of the festive board, and a tune- 
ful voice, with a proper delivery of the Vords, 
renders them perfect. Nevertheless, . to these I 
propose adding bass accompaniments, because 
then they are fitted either for singing, or for in 
strumental performance, when there happens to 
be no singer. I mean to employ our right 
trusty friend Mr. Clarke to set the bass to these, 
which he assures me he will do, con amore, and 
with much greater attention than he ever be- 
stowed on any thing of the kind. But for this 
last class of airs, I will not attempt to find mpre 
than one set of verses. 

That eccentric bard Peter Pindar, has started 
I know not how many difficulties, about wri- 
ting for the airs I sent to hira, because of the 
peculiarity of their measure, and the trammels 
hey impose on his flying Pegasus. I subjoin 



for your perusal the only one I have yet got 
from him, being for the fine air " Lord Gre- 
gory." The Scots verses printed with that air, 
are taken from the middle of an old ballad, call- 
ed, The Ziuss of Lochroyan, which I do not 
admire. I have set down the air therefore as a 
creditor of yours. Many of the Jacobite songs 
are replete with wit and humour ; might not 
the best of these be included in our volume of 
comic songs ? 



POSTSCRIPT, 

FROM THE HOl^. A. ERSKINE. 

Mr. Thomson has been so obliging as to give 
me a perusal of your songs. Highland Mary is 
most enchantlngly pathetic, and Duncan Gray 



possesses native genuine hi 



snak 



lowpin o'er a linn," is a line of itself that should 
make you immortal. I sometimes hear of you 
from our mutual friend C, who is a most ex- 
cellent fellow, and possesses, above all men I 
know, the charm of a most obliging disposition. 
You kindly promised me, about a year ago, a 
collection of your unpublished productions, reli- 
gious and amorous ; I know from experience 
how irksome it is to copy. If you will get any 
trusty person in Dumfries to write them over 
fair, I will give Peter Hill whatever money he 
asks for his trouble ; and I certainly shall not 
betray your confidence. 

I am your hearty admirer, 

ANDREW ERSKINE. 



No. XII. 



THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

26th January, 1793. 

I APPROVE greatly, my dear Sir, of your plans. 
Dr. Beattie's Essay will of itself be a treasure. 
On my part, I mean to draw up an appendix to 
the Doctor's Essay, containing my stock of an- 
ecdotes, &c. of our Scots songs. All the late 
Mr. Tytler's anecdotes I have by me, taken 
down in the course of my acquaintance with 
him from his own mouth. I am such an en- 
thusiast, that in the course of my several pere- 
grinations through Scotland, I made a pilgri- 
mage to the Individual spot from vvhich every 
song took its rise, " Lochaber," and the *' Braes 
of Ballenden," excepted. So far as the locality, 
either from the title of the air, or the tenor of 
the song, could be ascertained, I have paid my 
devotions at the particular shrine of every 
Scotch muse. 

I do not doubt but you might make a very 
valuable collection of Jacobite songs — but would 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



39' 



jt give no offence ? In tlie mean time, do not 
you think that some of them, particularly " The 
Sow's tail to Geordie," as an air, with other 
words, might he well worth a place in your 
collection of lively songs ? 

If it were possihle to procure songs of merit, 
it would he proper to have one set of Scots 
words to every air, and that the set of words to 
which the notes ought to be set. There is a 
naivete, a pastoral simplicity, in a sliglit inter- 
mixture of Scots words and phraseology, which 
is more in unison (at least to ray taste, and I 
will add, to every genuine Caledonian taste), 
with the simple pathos, or rustic sprightliness of 
our native music, than any English verses what- 
ever. 

The very name of Peter Pindar, is an acqui- 
sition to your work. His " Gregory" is beau- 
tiful. I have tried to give you a set of stanzas 
in Soots, on the same subject, which are at your 
service. Not that I intend to enter the lists 
with Peter ; that would be presumption indeed. 
My song, though much inferior in poetic merit, 
has I think more of the ballad simplicity in it. 



think it very remaikahle, either for its merits, 
or dcmerils. It is impossible (at least I feel it 
so in my stinted powers^, to be always original, 
entertaining, and witty. 

What is become of the list, &c. of your songs? 
I shall be out of all temper with you by and by. 
I have always looked on myself as the prince of 
indolent correspondents, and valued myselt ac- 
cordingly ; and 1 will not, cannot bear rivalship 
from you, nor any body else. 



No. XIV. 
THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

( Wandering Willie, p. 240. ) 

March, 1793. 
I leave it to you, my dear Sir, to determine 
whether the above, or tfic old " Through the 
lanir Muir," be the best. 



(Lord Gregory* p. 209.) 

My most respectful compliments to the ho- 
nourable gentleman who favoured me with a 
postscript in your last. He shall hear from me 
and receive his MSS. soon. 



No. XIII. 



THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

( Mary Murison, p. 2\l.) 

MV DKAR siK, 20th March, 179S. 

The song prefixed is one of my juvenile 
works. I leave it in your hands. I do not 



* The song of Dr. Walcott on tlie same subject is as 
follows : — 

'■ Ah ope, Lord Grejjory, thy door, 
. .A niidniglit wanderer sighs ; 

Hard rush tlie rains, the tempests roar. 
And lightnings cleave the skies. 

Who comes with woe at this drear night — 

A pilfivim of the gloom ? 
If she wliose love did once delight. 

My cot sliall yield her room. 

Alas ! thou hcard'st a pilgrim mourn, 

That once was priz'd by thee : 
Think of the ring by yonder burn 

Thou gav'st to love and ine. 

But should'st thou not poor Marian know, 

I'll turn my feet and part; 
And think the storms Vhat round me blow. 

Far kinder than thy heart. 

It is but doing justice to Dr. Walcott to mention, 
that his song is the original. Mr. Bums saw it, liked 
it, and immediately wrote the other on the same sub- 
ject, which is derived from an old beottish ballad of 
uncertain origin. 



No. XV. 

THE SAME TO THE SA1\IE. 

( Open the Door to Me, O, p. 219.) 

I do not know whether this song be really 
naended. 



No. XVI. 
THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

( True-hearted was he, p. 24-0.) 



No. XVIl. 
MR. THOMSON TO , THE POET. 

JUdinhurgh, id April, 1 793. 

I wn,r. not recognise the title you give your- 
self, " the prince of indolent correspondents ;" 
but if the adjective were taken away, I think 
the title would then fit you exactly. It gives 
me pleasure to find you cap furnish anecdotes 
with respect to most of the songs : these will 
be a literary curiosity. 

I now send you my list of the songs, which 
I believe will be found nearly complete. I have 
put down the first lines of all the English songs, 
which I propose giving in addition to the Scotch 
verses. If any others occur to you, better adapt- 
ed to the character of the airs, pray mention 



398 



BURNS' WORKS. 



tbena, when you favour me with your strictures 
upon every thing else relating to the work. 

Pleyel has lately sent me a number of the 
songs, with his symphonies and accompaniments 
added to them. I wish you were here, that I 
might serve up some of them to you with your 
own verses, by way of dessert after dinner. There 
is so much delightful fancy in the symphonies, 
and such a delicate simplicity in the accom- 
paniments : they are indeed beyond all praise. 

I am very much pleased with the several last 
productions of your muse : your Lord Gregory, 
in my estimation, is more interesting than 
Peter's, beautiful as his is ! Your Here Awa 
Willie must undergo some alterations to suit 
the air. Mr. Erskiue and I have been conning 
it over : he will suggest what is necessary to 
make them a fit match.* 

The gentleman I have mentioned, whose fine 
taste you are no stranger to, is so well pleased 
l)oth with the musical and poetical part of our 
work, that he has volunteered his assistance, 
and has already written four songs for it, which, 
by his own desire, I send for your perusal. 



No. XVIII. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

( Tfie Soldier's Return, p. 235,) 
{Meff o' the Mill. p. 2\\.) 



No. XIX. 



THL FOET TO MR. THOxMSON. 

nth April, 1793. 

Thank you, my dear Sir, for your packet. 
Yon cannot imagine how much tliis business of 
composing for your publication has added to my 
enjoyments. What with my eaily attachment 
to ballads, your book, &c. ballad-making is now 
as completely my hobby-horse, as ever fortifica- 
tion was Uncle Toby's; so I'll e'en canter it 
away till I come to the limit of my race, (God 
grant that I may take the right side of the win- 
ning-post !) and then cheerfully looking back 
on the honest folks with whom 1 have been hap- 
py, I shall say, or sing, " Sae merry as we a' 
hae been !" and raising ray last looks to the whole 
human race, the last words of the voice of Coi- 
la shall be " Good night and joy be wi' you 
a' !" So much for my last won^ : now for a 
few present remarks, as they have occurred at 
random, on looking over your list. 

The first lines of The last time 1 came o'er 



• The gentleman alluded to was Mr. Andrew Ers- 
kine. The poet adopted part of the alterations, and 
rejected the rest. 



the moor, and several other lines in it, are beau- 
tiful : but in my opinion — pardon me, revered 
shade of Ramsay ! the song is unworthy of the 
divine air. I shall try to make, or mend. For 
ever. Fortune ivilt thou prove, is a charming 
song ; but Logan hum and Logan braes, a';e 
sweetly susceptible of rural imagery : I'll try 
that likewise, and if I succeed, the other song 
may class among the flnglish ones. I remem- 
ber the two last last lines of a verse in some of 
the old songs of Logan water, (for I know a 
good many different ones) which I think pretty ; 

" Now my dear lad maun face his faes, 
Far, far frae me and Logan braes. " 

Jifg Patie is a lover gay, is unequal. " His 
mind is never muddy," is a muddy expression 
indeed. 



Then I'll resign and marry Pate, 
And syne my cockernony." 



This is surely far unworthy of Ramsay, or 
your book. My song, Rigs of barley, to the 
same tune, does not altogether please me ; but if 
I can mend it, and thrash a few loose sentiments 
out of it, I will submit it to your consideration. 
The lass o' JPatie's mill is one of Ramsay's 
best songs; but there is one loose sentiment in 
it, which my much-valued friend, Mr. Ei-skine, 
will take into his critical consideration. In Sir 
J. Sinclair's Statistical volumes are two claims, 
one, I think, from Aberdeenshire, and the other 
from Ayrshire, for the lionour of this song. 
The following anecdote, which I had from the 
present Sir William Cunningham, of Robert- 
land, who had it of the late John Earl of Lou- 
don, I can on such authorities believe. 

Allan Hani«ay was residing at Loudon Castle 
with the then Earl, father to Earl John ; and 
one forenoon, riding, or walking out together, 
his Lordship and Allan passed a sweet roman- 
tic spot on Irvine water, still called " Patie's 
Mill," where a bonnie lass was " tedding hay, 
bareheaded on the green." JNIy Lord observed 
to Allan, that it would be a fine theme for a 
song, Ramsay took the hint, and lingering be- 
hind, he composed the first sketch of it, which 
he produced at dinner. 

One day I heard Mary say. Is a fine song; 
but for consistency's sake alter the name " Ado- 
nis." Was there ever such banns published, as 
a purpose of marriage between Adonis and Ma- 
ry ? I agree with you that my song. There's 
nought but care on every hand, is much superi- 
or to Poortith caidd. The original song. The 
mill, mill O, though excellent, is, on account of 
delicacy, inadmissible ; still I like the title, and 
think a Scottish song Would suit the notes best ; 
and let your chosen song, which is very pretty, 
follow, as an English set. The banks of the 
Dee is, you know, literally Langolee to slow 
time, 'fhe song is well enough, but has some 
false imagery in it : for instance, 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



399 



No. XXI. 



THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

April, 1793. 

1 HAVE yours, my dear Sir, this moment. I 
AvjXX answer it and your former letter, in my 
desultory way of saying whatever comes upper- 
most. 

The business of many of our tunes wanting 
at the beginning what fiddlers call a starting- 
note, is often a rub to us poor rhymers. 

" There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 
Tliat wander thro' the blooming heather," 



" And sweetly the nightingale sung from the think we ought not to displace or alter it, gx- 
tree." cept the Jast stanza.* 

In the first place, the nightingale sjngs in a 
low bush, but never from a tree ; and in the 
second place, there never was a nightingale seen 
or heard on the banks of the Dee, or on the 
banks of any other river in Scotland. Exotic 
rural imagery is always comparatively flat. If 
I could hit on another stanza equal to The small 
birds rejoice, &c. I do myself honestly avow 
that I think it a superior song. Johti Ander- 
son my jo — the song to this tune in .Johnson's 
Museum, is my composition, and I think it not 
my worst : If it suit you, take it and welcome. 
Your collection of sentimental and pathetic 
songs, is, in my opinion, very complete ; but not 
so your comic ones. Where are Tullochgorum, 
Lumps rt' puddin, Tibbie Fowler, and several 
others, which, in my humble judgment, are well 
worthy of preservation ? There is also one sen- 
timental song of mine in the Museum, which 
oever was known out of the immediate neigh- 
bourhood, until I got it taken down from a 
conntry girl's singing. It is called Crair/iebvrn 
wood; and in the opinion of Mr. Clarke, is 
one of our sweetest Scottish songs. He is (jnite 
an enthusiast about it ; and I would take his 
taste in Scottish music against the taste of most 
connoisseurs. 

You are quite right in inserting the last five 
in your list, though they are certainly Irish. 
Shepherds I have lost my love, is to me a hea- 
venly air — what would you think of a set of 
Scottish verses to iti* I have made one to it a 

good while ago, which I think 

. . . . but in its original state is not quite a 
lady's song, I enclose an altered, not amend- 
ed copy for you, if you choose to set the tune to 
it, and let the Irish verses follow. 

Mr. Erskine's songs are all pretty, but his 
Lone vale is divine. Yours, &c. 



Let me know just how you like these random 
hints. 



No. XX. 



MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

Edinburgh, April, 1793. 

I RE.JOICE to find, my dear Sir, that ballad- 
making continues to be your hobby-horse. 
Great pity 'twould be were it otherwise. I 
hope you will amble it away for many a year, 
and " witch the world with your horseman- 
ship." 

I know there are a good many lively songs 
of merit that I have not put down in the list 
sent you ; but I have them all in my eye. My 
Patie is a lover gay, though a little imequal, is 

natural and very pleasing song, and I humbly 



You may alter to 

" Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 
Ye wander," &c. 

My song. Here awa, there awa, as amended 
by Mr. Erskine, 1 entirely approve of, and re- 
turn you. 

Give me leave to criticise your taste in the 
only thing in which it is in my opinion repre- 
hensible. You know I ought to know some- 
thing of my own trade. Of pathos, sentiment, 
and point, you are a complete judge ; but there 
is a quality more necessary than either, in a 
song, and which is the very essence of a ballad, 
I mean simplicity : now, if I mistake not, this 
last feature you are a little apt to sacrifice to 
the foregoing. 

Ramsay, as every other poet, has not been 
always eq\ially happy in his pieces : still I can- 
not approve of taking such liberties with an 
author as Mr. W. jjropo^es doing with The last 
time I came o'er the Moor. Let a poet, if he 
chooses, take up the idea of another, and work 
it into a piece of his own ; but to mangle the 
works of tlie poor bard, whose tuneful tongue 
is now mute for ever, in the dark and nanow 
house — by Heaven 'twould be sacrilege ! I 
grant that Mr. W's version is an improvement ; 
but I know Mr. W. well, and esteem him much ; 
let him mend the song, as the Highlander 
mended his gun : — he gave it a new stock, and 
a new lock, and a new barrel. 

I do not, by this, object to leaving out im- 
proper stanzas, where that can be done without 
spoiling the whole. One stanza in 2Vie lass 
o' Patie" s mill, must be left out : the song will 
be nothing worse for it. I am not sure if we 



The ongmai letter from Mr. Thomson contains 
many observations on ihe Scottish songs, and on the 
manner of adapting the words to the- music, which, at 
his desire, are suppressed. The subsequent letter of 
Mr. Burns refers to several of these observations. 



400 



BURNS' WORKS. 



cab take the same liberty with Corn rigs are 
bonnie. Perhaps it might want the last stanza, 
and be the better for it. Cauld kail in Aber- 
deen, you must leave with me yet a while. I 
have vowed to have a song to that air, on the 
lady whom I attempted to celebrate in the 
verses, Poortith cauld and restless love. At 
any rate, my other soug, Green yrow the rash- 
es, will never suit. That song is current in 
Scotland under the old title, and to the merry 
old tune of that name ; which of course would 
mar the progress of your song to celebrity. 
Your book will be the standard of Scots songs 
for the future : let this idea ever keep your 
judgment on the alarm. 

I send a song, on a celebrated toast in this 
country, to suit Bonnie Dundee. I send you 
also a ballad to the Mill, mill O. 

The last time I came o'er the moor, I would 
fain attempt to make a Scots song for, and let 
Ramsay's be the English set. You sh ill hear 
fiom me soon. When you go to London on 
this business, can you come by Dumfries ? I 
have still several IMS. Scots airs by me which 
I have picked up, mostly from the singing of 
country lasses. They please m.e vastly ; but 
your learned lugs would ])erhaps be displeased 
with the very feature for which I like them. 
I call them simple ; you would pronounce then» 
silly. Do you know a fine air called Jackie 
Hume's lament? I have a song of consider- 
able merit to that air. I'll enclose you both the 
song and tune, as I had them ready to send to 
Johnson's Museum. I send you likewise, to 
me, a beautiful little air, which I had taken 
down from viva voce. 

Adieu ! 



No. XXII. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

/.'^•;- r. --Oil ! - 
MY BEAK SIR, ' ' J pril, \'793. 

I HAD scarcely put my last letter into the 
post-offiie, when I took up the subject of The 
last time I came o\r the moor, and ere 1 slept 
drew the outline's of the foregoing. How far I 
have succeeded, I leave on this, as on every 
other occasion, to you to decide. I own my 
vanity is flattered, when you give my songs a 
place in yoi<rr elegant and superb work ; but to 
be of seivice to the work is my first wish. As 
I have often told you, I do not in a single in- 
stance wish you, out of compliment to me, to 
insert any thing of mine. One hint let me give 
you whatever Mr. Pleyel docs, let him not al- 
ter one iota of the original Scottish airs ; I mean, 
in the song department ; but let our national 
music preserve its native features. They are, 
I own, frequently wild and irreducible to the 
more modern rules ; but on ithat very eccentri- 
city, perhaps, depends a great part of their ef 
feet. 



No. XXIII. 

MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

Edinburgh, 26th April, 1793. 
I HEARTILY thank you, my dear Sir, for your 
last two letters, and the songs which accompa- 
nied them. I am always both instructed and 
entertained by your observations ; and the frank- 
ness with which you speak out your mind, is to 
me highly agreeable. It is very possible I may 
not have the true idea of simplicity in composi- 
tion. I confess there are several songs of Allan 
Ramsay's, for example, that 1 think silly enough, 
which another person, more conversant than I 
have been with country people, would perhaps 
call simple and natural. But the lowest scenes 
of simple nature will not please generally, if co- 
pied precisely as they are. The poet, like the 
painter, must select what will form an agreeable 
as well as a natural picture. On this subject it 
were easy to enlarge ; but at present suffice it 
to say, that I consider simplicity, rightly under- 
stood, as a most essential quality in composition, 
and the ground-work of beauty in all the arts. 
I will gladly appropriate your most interesting 
new ballad, ^Vhen wild war's deadly blast, &c. 
to the 3Idl, mill, O, as well as the two other 
songs to their respective airs ; but the third and 
fourth line of the first verse must undergo some 
little alteration in order to suit the music. Pleyel 
does not alter a single note of the songs. That 
would be absurd indeed ! With the airs which 
he introduces into the sonatas, I allow him to 
take such liberties as he pleases ; but that has 
nothing to do with the songs. 



P. S. — I wish you would do as you proposed 
with your Rigs o' barley. If the loose senti- 
ments are thrashed out of it, I will find an air 
for it ; but as to this there is no hurry. 



No. XXIV. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

June, 1793. 

When I tell you, my dear* Sir, that a friend 
of mine, in whom I am much interested, has 
fallen a sacrifice to these accursed times, you 
will easily allow that it might unhinge me for 
domg any good among ballads. My own loss, 
as to pecuniary matters, is trifling ; but the to- 
tal ruin of a much-loved friend, is a loss indeed. 
Pardon my seeming inattention to your last 
commands. 

I cannot alter the disputed lines in the Mill, 
mill, O. What you think a defect I esteem as 
a positive beauty : so you see how doctors dif- 
fer. I shall now, with as much alacrity as I 
can muster, go on with your commands. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



401 



You know Fraser, the liantboy player in 
Edinburgh — he is here instructing a band of 
music for a fencible corps quartered in this 
country. Among many of his airs that please 
nie, there is one well known as a reel by the 
name of The Quaker's Wife ; and which I re- 
member a grand aunt of mine usi-d to sing, by 
the name of Liggeram cos/t, my bimmj icee lass. 
3Mr. Fraser jjjays it slow, and m ith an expres- 
sion that quite charms me. I became such an 
enthusiast about it, that I made a song for it, 
which I here subjoin ; and enclose Fraser's set 
of the tune. If they hit your fancy, they are 
at your service ; if not, return me the tune, 
and I will put it in Johnson's Museum. I 
think the song is not in my worst manner. 

(^Blythe hae I been on yon Hill, p. 193.) 

I should wish to hear how this pleases you. 



This thought is inexpressibly beautiful ; and 
quite, so far as I know, original. It is too 
short for a song, else I would forswear you al- 
together, unless you gave it a place. I have 
often tried to eke a stanza to it, but in vain. 
After balancing myself for a musing five mi- 
nutes on the hind-legs of my elbow chair, I 
produced the fullowiag. 

The verses are far inferior to the foregoing, 

frankly confess ; but if worthy of insertion at 

all, they might be first in place ; as every poe^, 

who knows any thing of his trade, will husband 

his best thoughts for a concluding stroke. 

O were my love yon lilac fair, 

Wi' purple blossoms to the spring ; 

And I a bird to shelter there. 

When wearied on my little wing : 

How I wad mourn, when it was torn 
By autumn wild, and winter rude ! 

But I wad sing on wanton wing, 

When youthfu' INIay its bloom rencw'd. 



No. XXV. 
THE SAIME TO THE SAME. 

25th June, 1793. 
Have you ever, my dear Sir, felt your bo- 
som ready to buist with indignation on reading 
of those mighty villains who divide kingdom 
against kingdom, desolate provinces, and lay na- 
tions waste out of the wantonness of ambition 
or often from still more ignoble passions ? In a 
motxl of this kind to-day, I recollected the air 
of Logan neater ; and it occurred to me that 
its querulous melody probably had its origin 
from the plaintive indignation of some swelling 
suffering heart, fired at the tyrannic strides of 
some public destroyer ; and overwhelmed with 
private distress, the consequence of a country'; 
ruin. If 1 have done any thing at all like jus 
tice to my feelings, the following song, com 
posed in three quarters of an hour's meditation 
in my elbow chair, ought to have some merit. 

(Logan Braes, p. 209.) 

Do you know the following beautiful little 
fragment in Witherspoon's Collection of Scots 
Songs ? 

Tune — " Hughie Graham," 

" O gin my love were yon red rose 
" That grows upon the castle wa', 

** And I mysel' a drap o' dew, 
" Into her bonnie breast to fa' ! 

" Ob, there beyond expression blest, 
" I'd feast on beauty a' the night ; 

*' Seal'd on her sllk-saft faulds to rest, 
" Till fley'd awa by Phwbus' light." 



No. XXVI. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

Monday, \st July, 1793. 

I a:m extremely sorry, my good Sir, that any 
thing should happen to unhinge you. The times 
are terribly out of tuue, and when harmony will 
be restored, heaven knows. 

The first book of songs, just published, will 
be despatched to you along with this. Let me 
be favoured with your opinion of it frankly and 
freely. 

I shall certainly give a place to the song you 
have writteu for the Quaker's u^ife ; it is quite 
enchanting. I*ray, will you return the list of 
songs, with such airs added to it as you think 
ought to be included. The business now rests 
entirely on myself, the gentleman who original*. 
ly agreed to join the speculation having re- 
quested to be ofi^. No matter ; a loser I cannot 
be. The superior excellence of the work will 
create a general demand for it, as soon as it is 
properly known. And were the sale even slower 
than it promises to be, I should be some- 
what compensated for my labour, by the plea- 
sure I shall receive from the music. I cannot 
express how much I am obligeil to you for the 
exquisite new songs you are sending me ; but 
thanks, my friend, are a poor return for what 
you have done : as I shall be benefited by the 
publication,, vou n^ust suffer uie to enclose a 
small mark of mv gratitude*, and to repeat it 
afterwards when I find it convenient. Do not 
return it, for, by heaven, if you do, our corres- 
pondence is at an end : and though this would 
be no loss to you, it would mar the publication. 



402 



BURNS' WORKS. 



which, under your auspices, cannot /ail to be 
spectable and interesting. 



Wednesday MoTtiing. 
I thank you for your delicate additional ver- 
ses to the old fragment, and for your excellent 
song to Logan water : Thomson's truly elegant 
one will follow for the English singer. Your 
apostrophe to statesmen is admirable, but I am 
not sure if it is quite suitable to the supposed 
gentle character of the fair raouiner who speaks 
it. 



No. XXVII. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

MY DEAR SIR, July 2, 1793. 

I HAVE just finished the following ballad, and 
as I do think it in my best style, I send it you. 
Mr. Clarke, who wrote down the air from Mrs, 
Burns' wood-note wild, is very fond of it ; and 
has given it a celebrity by teaching it to some 
young ladies of the first fashion here. If you 
do not like the air enough to give it a place in 
your collection, please return it. The song you 
may keep, as I remember it. 



{Bonnie Jean, p. 194.) 

I have some thoughts of inserting in your in- 
dex, or in my notes, the names of the fair ones, 
the themes of my songs. I do not mean the 
name at full ; but dashes or asterisms, so as in- 
genuity may find them out. 

The heroine of the foregoing is Miss M. 
daughter to JNIr. ]\I. of D., one of your subscri- 
bers. I have not painted her in the rank which 
she holds in life, but in the dress and character 
of a cottager. 



No. XXVIII. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

Juhj, 1793. 
I ASSURE you, my dear Sir, that you truly 
hurt me with your pecuniary parcel. It de- 
grades me in my own eyes. However, to return 
it would savour of affectation ; but as to any 
more traffic of that debtor and creditor kind, I 
swear by that Honour whicV crowns the up- 
right statue of Robert Burns' Integrity — 
on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn 
the by-past transaction, and from that moment 
commence entire stranger to you ! Burns' cha- 
racter for generosity of sentiment and indepen- ] 



dence of mind wiil, I trust, long outlive any of 
his wants, which the cold unfeeling ore caa 
supi)ly : at least, I wdl take care that such a 
character he shall deserve. 

Thank you for my copy of your publication. 
Never did my eyes behold, in any musical work, 
such elegance and correctness. Your preface, 
too, is admirably written ; only, your partiality 
to me has made you say too much ; however, it 
will bind me down to double every effort in the 
future progress of the work. The following are 
a few remarks on the songs in the list you sent 
me. I never copy what I write to you, so I 
may be often tautological, or perhaps contradic- 
tory. 

The flowers of the forest is charming as a 
poem ; and should be, and must be, set to the 
notes ; but, though out of your rule, the three 
stanzas, beginning, 

" I hae seen the smiling o' fortune beguiling,'* 

are worthy of a place, were it but to immorta- 
lize the author of them, who is an old lady of 
my acquaintance, and at this moment living in 
Edinburgh. She is a Mrs. Cockburn : I for- 
get of what place ; but from Roxburghshire. 
What a charming apostrophe is 

" O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting, 
Why, why torment us — poor sons of a day !" 

The old ballad, I wish I were where Helen lies, 
is silly, to contemptibility*. My alteration of it, 
in Johnson's, is not much better. Mr. Pinker- 
ton, in his, what he calls, Ancient Ballads 
(many of them notorious, though beautiful 
enough forgeries) has the best set. It is full of 
his own interpolations — but no matter. 

In my next, I will suggest to your considera- 
tion, a few songs which may have escaped your 
hurried notice. In the meantime, allow me to 
congratulate you now, as a brother of the quill. 
You have committed your character and fame ; 
which will now be tried, for ages to come, by 
the illustrious jury of the Sons and Daughters 
of Taste — all whom poesy can please, or music 
charm. 

Being a bard of nature, I have some preten- 
sions to second sight ; and I am warranted by 
the spirit to foretel and affirm, that your great- 
grandchild will hold up your volumes, and say, 
with honest pride, " This so much admired se- 
lection was the work of my ancestor." 



» There is a copy of this ballad given in the account 
of the parish of Kirkpatrick-Fleming, (which contains 
the tomb of Fair Helen Irvine,) in the statistics of Sir 
John Sinclair, Vol. XIII. p. 275, to which thischarac> 
ter is certainly not applicable. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



403 



No. XXIX. 
' MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

DEAR SIR, Edinburgh, \st August, 1793. 

I HAD the pleasure of receiving your last two 
letters, and am happy to find you are quite 
pleased with the appearance of the first book. 
When you come to hear the songs sung and ac- 
companied, you will be charmed with them. 

The honnie hruchet Lassie, certainly deserves 
better verses, and I hope you will match her. 
Cauld kail in Aberdeen, Let me in this ae night, 
and several of the livelier airs, wait the muse's 
leisure : these are peculiarly worthy of her 
choice gifts : besides, you'll notice that in airs 
of this sort, the singer can always do greater 
justice to the poet, than in the slower airs of 
The Hush aboon Traqiiair, Lord Gregory, 
and the like ; for in the manner the latter are 
frequently sung, you must be contented with 
the sound, without the sense. Indeed both 
the airs and words are disguised by the very 
slow, languid, psalm-singing style in which 
they are too often performed : they lose anima- 
tion and expression altogether, and instead of 
speaking to the mind, or touching the heart, 
they cloy upon the ear, and set us a yawn- 
ing ! 

Your ballad, There was a lass and she ivas 
fair, is simple and beautiful, and shall undoubt- 
edly grace my collection. 



No. XXX. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

WS^EAR THOMSON, AuQUSt, 1793. 

i HOLD the pen for our friend Clarke, who 
at present is studying the music of the spheres 
at my elbow. The Georgium Sidus he thinks 
is rather out of tune ; so until he rectify that 
matter, he cannot stoop to terrestrial affairs. 

He sends you six of the Rondeau subjects, 
and if more are wanted, he says you shall have 
hem. 



Confound your long stairs I 

S. CLARKE. 



No. XXXI. 

THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

August, 1793. 
YooR objection, my dear sir, to the passages 
in my song of Logan Water, is right in one in- 
stance J but it is difficult to mend it ; If I can, 



I will. The other passage you object to does 
not appear in the same light to me. 

I have tried my hand on Robin Adair, and 
you will probably think, with little success; 
but it is such a cursed, cramp, out of the way 
measure, that I despair of doing any thing bet- 
ter to it. 



(Phillis the fair, p. 222.) 

So much for namby-pamby. I may, after 
all, try my hand on it in Scots verse. There I 
always find myself most at home. 

I have just put the last hand to the song I 
meant for Cauld Kail in Aberdeen. If it suits 
you to insert it, I shall be pleased, as the hero- 
ine is a favourite of mine : if not, I shall also 
be pleased ; because I wish, and will be glad, 
to see you act decidedly on the business. 'Tis 
a tribute as a man of taste, and as an editor, 
which you owe yourself. 



No. XXXII. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

MY GOOD SIR, August, 1793. 

I CONSIDER it one of the most agreeable cir- 
cumstances attending this publication of mine, 
that it has procured me so many of your much 
valued epistles. Pray make my acknowledg- 
ments to St. Stephen for the tunes ; tell him I 
admit the justness of his complaint on my stair- 
case, conveyed in his laconic postscript to your 
jeu d'esprit ; which I perused more than once, 
without discovering exactly whether your discus- 
sion was music, astronomy, or politics ; though 
a sagacious friend, acquainted with the convivial 
habits of the poet and the musician, offered me 
a bet of two to one, you were just drowning 
care together ; that an empty bowl was the 
only thing that would deeply affect you, and the 
only matter you could then study how to re- 
medy ! 

I shall be glad to see you give Hohin Adair 
a Scottish dress. Peter is furnishing him with 
an English suit for a change, and you are well 
matched together. Robin's air is excellent, 
though he certainly has an out of the way mea- 
sure as ever poor Parnassian wight was plagued 
with. I wish you would invoke the muse for a 
single elegant stanza to be substituted for the 
concluding objectionable verses of Down the 
burn Davie, so that this most exquisite song 
may no longer be excluded from good company. 

Mr. Allan has made an inimitable drawing 
from your John Anderson my Jo, which I am 
to have engraved, as a frontispiece to the hu- 
morous class of songs ; you will be quite charm- 
ed with it, I promise you. The old couple are 
seated by the fireside. Mrs. Anderson, in great 



404. 



BURNS' WORKS. 



good humour, i-^ dapping John's shoulders, 
while he smiles anil looks at her with such glee, 
as to show that he fully recollects the pleasant 
tlays and nights when they were first acqvcjit. 
The drawing would do honour to the pencil of 
Teniers. 



No. XXXIII. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

August, 1793. 
That crinkum-crankum tune, Robin Adair, 
i^as run so in my head, and I succeeded so ill 
in my last attempt, that I have ventured, in this 
morning's walk, one essay more. You, my 
dear Sir, will remember an unfortunate part of 
our worthy friend C. 's story, which happened 
about three years ago. That struck my fancy, 
and I endeavoured to do the idea justice, as 
follows. 



(^Had la cave, p. 203.) 

By the way, I have met with a musical High- 
lander, in Breadalbane's fencibles, which are 
quartered here, who assures me that he well 
remembers his mother's singing Gaelic songs to 
both Robin Adair and Gramachree. They 
certainly have more of the Scotch than Irish 
taste in them. 

This man comes from the vicinity of Liver- 
ness ; so it could not be any intercourse with 
Ireland that could bring them ; — except, what 
I shrewdly suspect to be the case, the wander- 
ing minstrels, harpers, and ])ipers, used to go 
frequently errant through the wilds both of 
Scotland and Ireland, and so some favourite airs 
might be common to both. — A case in point — 
They have lately, in Ireland, published an Irish 
air, as they say, called Caun du ddish. The 
fact is, in a publication of Corri's, a great while 
ago, you will find the same air, called a High- 
land one, with a (Jaelic song set to it. Its 
name there, I think, is Oran Gaoil, and a 
fine air it is. Do ask honest Allan, or the Rev. 
Gaelic parson, about these matters. 



No. XXXIV. 
THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

MY DEAR SIR, August, 1793. 

JjCt me in tins ae night, I will reconsider. 
I am glad you are pleased with my song, Had 
I a cave, &c. as I liked it myself. 

I walked out yesterday evening with a vo- 
lume of the Museum in my hand ; when, turn- 
ing up AUu7i Water, ** What numbers shall 



the muse repeat," &c. as the words appeared to 
me rather unworthy of so fine an air ; and re- 
collecting that it is on your list, I sat and raved 
under the shade of an old thorn, till I wiote 
out one to suit the measure. I may be wrong j 
but I think it not in my worst style. You 
must know, that in Ramsay's Tea-table, where 
the modern song first appeared, the ancient 
name of the tune, Allan says, is Allan Water, 
or, Ml/ love Annie's very bounie. This 
last has certainly been a line of the origina. 
song ; so I took up the idea, and, as you will 
see, have introduced the line in its place, which 
I presume it formerly occupied ; though I like- 
wise give you a choosing tine, if it should not 
hit the cut of your fancy. 

(By Allan streams I chanced to rove, 

While Phcebus sank beyond Benleddi, p. 190.) 

Bravo ! -say I ; it is a good song. Should 
you think so too, (not else) you can set the 
music to it, and let the other follow as English 
verses. 

Autumn is my propitious season. I make 
more verses in it than in all the year else. 
God bless you ! 



No. XXXV. 

THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

August, 1793. . 
Is Whistle and Til come to you, my lad, 
one of your airs ? I admire it much ; and yes- 
terday I set the following verses to it. Urbani, 
whom I met with here, begged them of me, as 
he admires the air much ; but as I understand 
that he looks with rather an evil eye on your 
work, I did not choose to comply. However, 
if the song does not suit your taste, I may pos- 
sibly send it him. The set of the air which 
I had in my eye, is in Johnson's Museum. 



( O whistle and Fll come to you^ my lad, 
p. 242.) 

Another favourite air of mine is. The muckin 
o' Geordie's byre. When sung slow, with ex- 
pression, I have wished that it had had better 
poetry : that I have endeavoured to supply, as 
follows : — 

(Phillis the Fair, p. 222.) 

Mr. Clarke begs you to give I\Iiss Phillis a 
corner in your book, as she is a particular flame 
of his. She is a Miss P. M., sister to bonnie 
Jean. They are both pupils of his. You shall 
hear from me, the very first grist I get from 
ray rhyming mill. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



405 



No. XXXV 



No. XXXVIII. 



THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

Anc/nst, 1793. 
That tunc, Canid Kail, is such a favourite 
of vours, that I once more roved out yesterday 
for' a gloamin-shot at the muses;* when the 
muse that presides o'er the shores of Nith, or 
rather my old inspiring dearest nymph Coila, 
whispered me the following. I have two rea- 
sons for thinking that it was my e;irly, sweet, 
simple iuspirer that was hy my elbow, " smooth 
gliding without step," and pouring the song on 
my glowing fancy. In the first place, sine* I 
]eft Coila's native haunts, not a fragment of a 
poet lias arisen to cheer her solitary musings, by 
catching inspiration from her ; so I more than 
suspect that she has followed me hither, or at 
least makes me occasional visits ; secondly, the 
last stanza of this song I send you in the very 
words that Coila taught me many years ago, 
and which I set to an old Scots reel in John- 
son's Aluseum. 

( Come let me take thee to vnj breast, p. 197.) 

If you think the above will suit your idea of 
your favourite air, 1 shall be highly pleased. 
2'he last time I came o\r the Moor, I cannot 
meddle with,- as to mending it : and the musi- 
cal world have been so long accustomed to Ram- 
say's words, that a different song, though posi- 
tively superior, would not be so well received. 
I am not fond of choruses to songs, so I have 
not made one for the foregoing. 



]MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

MY DEAR SIR, Edinburgh, }st Sept. 1793. 
Since writing you last, I have received half 
a dozen songs, with which I am delighted beyond 
expression. The humour and fancy of IK/ni/Zc 
and I'll come to you, mij lad, will render it 
nearly as great a favourite as Duncan Gray. 
Come let me take thee to my breast, Adown 
winding Nith, and By Allan stream, kc. are 
full of imagination and feeling, and sweetly suit 
the airs for which they are intended. Had I 
a cave on some wild distant shore, is a strik- 
ing and affecting composition. Our friend, to 
whose story it refers, read it with a swelling 
heart, I assure you. The union we are now 
forming, I think, can never be bioken ; these 
songs of yours will descend with the music to 
the latest posterity, and will be fondly cherished 
so long as genius, taste, and sensibility exist in 
our island. 

While the muse seems so propitious, I think 
it right to enclose a list of all the favours I have 
to ask of her, no fewer than twenty and three ! 
I have burdened the pleasant Peter with as many 
as it is j)robable he will attend to : most of the 
remaining airs would puzzle the English poet 
not a little ; they are of that peculiar measure 
and rhythm, that they must be familiar to him 
who writes for them. 



No. XXXVII. 

THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

(Dainty Davie, p. 198.) 

Avgiist, 1793. 

So much for Davie. The chorus, you know, 
is to the low part of the tune. See Clarke's 
set of it in the Museum. 

N. B. In the INIuseura they have drawled out 
the tune to twelve lines of poetry, which is 

nonsense. Four lines of song, and four 

of chorus, is the way. 



* Gloamin— twilight, properly from glooming. A 
beautiful poetical word which ought to be adopted in 
England. A gloamin-shot, a twilight interview. 



No. XXXIX. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

Sept. 1793. 

You may readily trust, my dear Sir, that any 
exertion in my power is heartily at your ser- 
vice. But one thing I must hint to you ; the 
very nanu; of Peter Pindar is of great service 
to your publication, so get a verse from him 
now and then ; though I have no objecti<^n, as 
well as I can, to bear the burden of the busi- 
ness. 

You know that my pietensions to musical 
taste are merely a icw of nature's instincts, un- 
taught and untutored by art. For this reason, 
many musical compositions, particularly where 
much of the merit lies in counterpoint ; how- 
ever they may transport and ravish thecals of 
you connisseurs, affect my simple lug no other- 
wise than merely as melodious din. On the 
other hand, by way of amends, I am delighted 
with many little melodies, which the learned 
musician despises as silly and insipid. I do not 
know whether the old air Hey tuttie taitie 
may rank among this number ; but well I know 
that, with Eraser's liautboy, it has often filled 
my eyes with tears. There is a tradition, which 
I have met with in many places of Scotland, 
that it was Robert Bruce's march at the battle 



406 



BURNS' WORKS. 



of Bannockburn. This thought, in my solitary 
wanderings, warmed me to a pitch of enthu- 
siasm on the theme of Liberty and Indepen- 
dence, which I threw into a kind of Scottish 
ode, fitted to the air that one might suppose to 
be the gallant Royal Scot's address to his he- 
roic followers on that eventful morning. 



' (Scots tvhahae wV Wallace hied, p. 195.) 

So may God ever defend the cause of Truth 
and Liberty, as he did that day ! — Amen. 

P. S. — I showed the air to llr])aui, who was 
highly pleased with it, and begged me to make 
soft verses for it ; but I had no idea of giving 
myself any trouble on the subject, till the acci- 
dental recollection of that glorious struggle for 
freedom, associated with the glowing ideas of 
some other struggles of the same nature, not 
quite so ancient, roused my rhyming mania. 
Clarke's set of the tune, with his bass, you will 
find in the Museum ; though I am afraid that 
the air is not what will entitle it to a place in 
your elegant selection. 



No. XL. 



THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

Sept. 1793. 

I DARE say, my dear Sir, that you will begin 
to think my correspondence is persecution. No 
matter, 1 can't help it ; a ballad is my hobby- 
horse ; which, though otherwise a simple sort 
of harmless, i(iiotical beast enough, has yet this 
blessed headstrong property, that when once it 
has fairly made off with a hapless wight, it gets 
so enamoured with the tinkle-gingle, tinkle- 
gingle of its own bells, that it is sure to run 
poor pilgarlick, the bedlam jockey, quite be- 
yond any useful point or post in the common 
race of man. 

The following song I have composed for 
Oran-gaoil, the Highland air that, you tell me 
in your last, you have resolved to give a place 
to in your book. I have this moment finished 
the song ; so you have it glowing from the mint. 
If it suit you, well ! if not, 'tis also well i 



(Behold the hour the boat arrives, p. 193.) 



No. XLI. 

MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

Edinhurfjh, 5th Sept. J 793. 
I BELIEVE it is generally allowed that the 



greatest modesty is the sure attendant of tli*. 
gi-eatest merit. While you are sending me verses 
that even Shakspeare might be proud to own, 
you speak of them as if they were ordinary pro- 
ductions ! Your heroic ode is to me the noblest 
composition of the kind in the Scottish lan- 
guage. I happened to dine yesterday with a 
party of your friends, to whom I read it. They 
were all charmed with it, entreated me to find 
out a suitable air for it, and reprobated the idea 
of giving it a tune so totally devoid of interest 
or grandeur as Het/ tuttie taitie. Assuredly 
your partiality for this tune must arise from the 
ideas associated in your mind by the tradition 
concerning it, for I never heard any person, — . 
and I have conversed again and again with the 
greatest enthusiasts for Scottish airs, — I say I 
never heard any one speak of it as worthy of 
notice. 

I have been running over the whole hundred 
airs, of which I lately sent you the list ; and I 
think Leiuie Gordon is most happily adapted 
to your ode ; at least with a very slight varia- 
tion of the fourth line, which I shall presently 
submit to you. There is in Lewie Gordon 
more of the grand than the plaintive, particu- 
larly when it is sung with a degree of spirit, 
which your words would oblige the singer to 
give it. I would have no scruple about substi- 
tuting your ode in the room of Leivie Gordon, 
which has neither the interest, the grandeur, 
nor the poetry that characterise your verses. 
Now, the variation I have to suggest upon the 
last line of each verse, the only line too short 
for the air, is as follows : — 

Verse \st, Or to glorious vlctorie. 

2c?, Chains — chains and slaverie. 

3d, Let him, let him turn and flie. 

4'th, Let him hravehj follow me. 

bth, But they shall, they shall be free. 

6th, Let us, let us do, or die ! 

If 3''ou connect each line with its own verse, I 
do not think you will find that either the senti- 
ment or the expression loses any of its energy- 
The only line which I dislike in the whole of 
the song is, " Welcome to your gory bed.' 
Would not another word be preferable to w«l' 
come ? In your next I will expect to be in 
formed whether you agree to what I have pro- 
posed. These little alterations I submit with 
the greatest deference. 

The beauty of the verses you have made for 
Oran-gaoil will insure celebrity to the air. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



407 



No. XLII. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

September, 1793. 

I HAVE received your list, my dear Sir, and 
here ^o my observations on it.* 

Down the burn Uavie. I have this mo- 
ment tried an alteration, leaving out the last 
half of the third stanza, and the first half of the 
last stanza, thus : — 

As down the burn they took their way, 

And thro' the flowery dale ; 
His cheek to hers he aft did lay, 

And love was aye the tale. 

With " Mary, when shall we return. 

Sic pleasure to renew ?" 
Quoth Mary, " Love, I like the burn. 

And aye shall follow you.'* + 

Thro* the wood laddie — T am decidedly of 
opinion, that both in this, and There'll never be 
peace till Jamie comes hatnc, the second or high 
part of the tune being a repetition of the first 
part an octave higher, is only for instrumental 
music, and would be much better omitted in 
singing. 

Cowden-knoices. Remember in your index 
that the song in pure English to this tune, be- 
ginning 

" When summer comes, the swains on Tweed," 

is the production of Crawford : Robert was his 
Christian name. 

Laddie lie near me, must lie by me for some 
time. I do not know the air ; and until I am 
complete master of a tune, in my own singing, 
(such as it is), I can never compose for it. 
My way is : I consider the poetic sentiment 
correspondent to my idea of the musical expres- 
sion ; then choose my theme ; begin one stan- 
za ; when that is composed, which is generally 
the most difficult part of the business, I walk 
out, sit down, and then look out for objects in 
nature around me, that are in unison or har- 
mony with the cogitations of my fancy, and 
wt)rking8 of my bosom ; humming every now 
and then the air, with the verses I have fra- 
med. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, 
I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and 
there commit my effusions to paper ; swinging 
at intervals on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, 
by way of culling forth my own critical stric- 
tures, as my pen goes on. Seriously, this, at 
home, is almost invariably my way. 

What cursed egotism I 

* Mr. Thomson's list of songs for his publication. 
In his remarks, the bard proceeds in order, and goes 
through the wliole; baton many of them he merely 
signifies his approbation. All his remarks of any im- 
portance are presented to the reader. 

|- This alteration Mr. Thomson has .idopted, (or at 
least intended to adopt), instead of Uie last stanza of 
the original song, >Yluch i& objectionable in point of 
delicacy. 



Gill Morice I am for leaving out. It is a 
plaguey length ; the air itself is never siuig ; 
and its place can well be supplied by one or two 
songs for fine airs that are not in your list. For 
instance, Craif/ieburn-wood and Hoy's ^y"ife. 
The first, beside its intrinsic merit, has novelty ; 
and the last has high merit, as well as great ce- 
lebrity. I have the original words of a song 
for the last air, in the hand-writing of the lady 
who composed it ; and they are superior to any 
edition of the song which the pubUc has yec 
seen. 

Iliyhland Laddie. The old set will please a 
mere Scotch ear best ; and the new an Ital- 
ianized one. There is a third, and what Os- 
wald calls the old Highland Laddie, which 
pleases me more than either of them. It is 
sometimes called Ginylan Johnnie ; it being 
the air of an old humorous tawdry song of that 
name. You will find it in the INIuseum, / hae 
been at Crookie-den, &c. I would advise you, 
in this musical quandary, to offer up your pray- 
ers to the muses for inspiring direction ; ar»d in 
the meantime, waiting for this direction, bestow 
a libation to Bacchus ; and there is not a doubt 
but you will hit on a judicious choice. Pro- 
batum est. 

Auld Sir Simon, I must beg you to leave 
out, and put in its place, The Quaker's wife. 

JBlythe hae I been o'er the hill, is one of the 
finest songs ever I made in my life ; and besides, 
is composed on a young lady, positively the 
most beautiful, lovely woman in the world. As 
I purpose giving you the names and designa- 
tions of all my heroines, to appear in some fu- 
ture edition of your work, perha|)s half a cen- 
tury hence, you must certainly include the bon- 
niest lass in a' the icarld in your collection. 

Daintie Davie, I have heard sung, nineteen 
thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine times, 
and always with the chorus to the low part of 
the tune ; and nothing has surprised me so much 
as your opinion on this subject. If it will not 
suit, as I proposed, we will lay two of the stan- 
zas together, and then make the chorus follow. 

Fee him father — I enclose you Eraser's set 
of this tune when he plays it slow ; in fact, 
he makes it the language of despair. I shall 
here give you two stanzas in that style ; merely 
to try if it will be any improvement. Were it 
possible, in singing, to give it half the pathos 
which Eraser gives it in playing, it would make 
an admirable pathetic song. I do not give these 
verses for any merit they have. I composed 
them at the time in which Patie Allan's mi- 
tlier died, that was about the back o' 7nidniyht ; 
and by the leeside of a bowl of punch, which 
had overset every mortal in company, except 
the hautbois and the muse. 



( Thou hast left me ever, Jamie, p. 239.) 

Jockie atid Jenny I would discard, and in 
its place would put There's nae luck about 



408 



BURNS' WORKS. 



the house, waich has a very pleasant air ; and 
which is positively the finest love-ballad in that 
style in the Scottish, or perhaps in any other 
language. When she cam ben she bubbet, as an 
air, is more beautiful than either, and in the an- 
dante way, would unite with a charming senti- 
mental ballad. 

Saw ye my father, is one of my greatest fa- 
vourites. The evening before last, I wandered 
out, and began a tender song ; in what I think 
is its native style. I must premise, that the 
old way, and the way to give most effect, is to 
have no starting note, as the fiddlers call it, 
but to burst at once into the pathos. Every 
country girl sings — Saw ye my father, §-c. 

My song is but just begun ; and I should 
like, before I proceed, to know your opinion of 
it. I have sprinkled it with the Scottish dia- 
lect, but it may be easily turned into correct 
English.— (p. 24a.) 



TodVui hame. Urbani mentioned an idea 
of his, which has long been mine ; that this air 
is highly susceptible of pathos ; accordingly, 
you will soon hear him, at your concert, try it 
to a song of mine in the Museum, Ye banks 
and braes o' bonnie Uoon. — One song more 
and I have done : Auld lang syne. The air 
is but mediocre ,• but the following song, the 
old song of the olden times, and which has 
never been in print, nor even in manuscript, un- 
til I took it down from an old man's singing, is 
enough to recommend any air. 



(^Auld lang syne, p. 191.) 

Now, I suppose I have tired your patience 
fairly. You must, after all is over, have a num- 
ber of ballads, properly so called. Gill Moricc, 
Tranent Muir, 31^ Pherson s Farewell, JBat- 
tle of Sheriff-nndr, or We ran and tliey ran, 
(I know the author of this charming ballad, 
and his history), Hardyhnute, Barbara Allan, 
(I can furnish a finer set of this tune than 
any thing that has yet appeared) ; and besides, 
do you know that I really have the old tune to 
which The Cherry and the Slae was sung ; 
and which is mentioned as a well known air in 
Scotland's Complaint, a book published before 
poor Mary's days. It was then called The 
banks o' Helicon ; an old poem which Pinker- 
ton has brought to liglit. You will see all this 
in Tytler's History of Scottish Music. The 
tune, to a learned ear, may have no great merit ; 
but it is a great curiosity. I have a good many 
original things of this kind. 



No. XLIII. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON 

September, 1793. 
I AM happy, my dear sir, that my ode pleases 
you so much. Your idea, " honour's bed," is, 
though a beautiful, a hackneyed idea ; so, if you 
please, we will let the line stand as it is. I 
have altered the song as follows : — 

(^Bannock-burn, p. 195.) 

N. B. — I have borrowed the last stanza firom 
the common stall edition of Wallace. 

" A false usurper sinks in every foe, 
And liberty returns with every blow." 

A couplet worthy of Homer. Yesterday you 
had enough of my correspondence. The post 
goes, and my head aches miserably. One com- 
fort ; I sufi'er so much, just now, in this world, 
for last night's joviality, that I shall escape scot- 
free for it in the world to come. Amen ! 



No. XLIV. 

MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

12^/t September, 1793. 
A THOUSAND thanks to you, my dear Sir, for 
your observations on the list of my songs. I 
am happy to find your ideas so much in unison 
with my own respecting the generality of the 
airs, as well as the verses. About some of them 
we differ, but there is no disputing about hobby- 
horses. I shall not fail to profit by the remarks 
you make ; and to re-consider the whole with 
attention. 

Ddinlie Davie must be sung, two stanzas 
together, and then the chorus — 'tis the proper 
way. I agree with you, that there may be 
something of pathos, or tenderness at least, iu 
the air of Fee him, father, when performed 
with feeling ; but a tender cast may be given 
almost to any lively air, if you sing it very slow- 
ly, expressively, and with st?rious words. I am, 
however, clearly and invariably for retaining the 
cheerful tunes joined to their own humorous 
verses, wherever the . verses are passable. But 
the sweet song for Fee him, father, which you 
began about the back of midnight, I will pub- 
lish as an additional one. JNIr. James Balfour, 
the king of good fellows, and the best singer 
of the lively Scottish ballads that ever existed, 
has charmed thousands of companies with Fee 
him, father, and with Todlin home also, to the 
old words, which never should be disunited from 
either of these airs. Some Bacchanals I would 
wish to discard. Fy let us a' to the bridal, for 
instance, is so coarse and vulgar, that I think it 
fit only to be sung in a company of drunken col- 



Hers ; an.l Saw ye my father appears to me 
both indelicate and silly. 

One word more with regard to your heroic 
ode I th.nk. with great deference to the poet, 
that a prudent general would avoid sayin- any 
thing to his soldiers which might tend to make 
death more frightful than it is. Gory presents a 
disagreeable image to the mind ; and to tell them. 
Welcome to your gory bed," seems rather a 
discouraging address, notwithstanding the alter- 
native which follows. I have shown the song 
to three friends of excellent taste, and each ot' 
them objected to this line, which emboldens me 
to use tne freedom of bringing it again under your 
notice. I would suggest, 

" Now prepare for honour's bed. 
Or for glorious victorie.' 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



409 

( \Vhi:rc are the joys I hae met in the morntna 
p. 2^2.) ^' 

Adieu, my dear Sir ! The post goes, so I shall 
defer some other remarks until more leisure. 



No. XLV. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

, September, 1793. 

, Who shall decide when doctors disagree ?" 

My ode pleases me so much that I cannot alter 
It. Your proposed alterations would, in my o- 
pinion, make it tame. I am exceedingly obli.r- 
ed to you for putting me on re-considering it'; 
as 1 think I have much improved it. Instead 
of " sodger ! hero !" I will have it " Caledo- 
nian ! on wi' me !" 

I have scrutinized it over and over ; and to 
the world some way or other it shall go as it is 
At the same time it will not in the least hurt 
me should you leave it out altogether and adhere 
to your first intention of adopting Logan's verses. • 
1 have finished my song to Saw ye my fa- 
r/<er; and in English, as you will see. That 
there is a syllable too much for the expression of 
the air, is true ; but allow me to say, that the 
mere dividmg of a dotted crotchet into a crot- 
chet and a quaver, is not a great matter : how- 
ever, m that I have no pretensions to cope in 
judgment with you. Of the poetry I speak with 
confidence ; but the music is a business where I 
hint my ideas with the utmost diffidence. 

Ihe old verses have merit, though unequal, 
and are popu ar; my advice is to set the air to 
the old words, and let mine follow as English 
verses. Here they are 



No. XL VI. 

THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

September, 1793, 
I HAVE been turning over some volumes of 
songs, to find verses whose measures would suit 
Hie airs for which you have allotted me to find 
EngJisJi songs. 

VovMuirland Willie, you have, in Ramsay's 
lea-table, an excellent song, beginning "Ah 
why those tears in Nelly's eyes?" As for The 
Collier's Dochter, take the following old Bac- 
chanal. 



(Deluded Swain, p.' 19S.) 

The faulty line in Logan-water, I mend thus : 

" How can your flinty hearts enjoy 
The widow's tears, the orphan's cry ?" 

The song, otherwise, will pass. As to M'^ 
Gregoira.Rua.Ruth, you will see a son? of 
mine to it, with a set of the air superior to yours, 
m the Museum, Vol. ii. p. isi. The song be- 
gins, » 

" Raving winds around her blowing." 



72 i 



\ our Irish airs are pretty, but they are down- 
right Irish. If they were like the Banks of 
-tSanna, for instance, though really Irish, yet in 
the Scottish taste, you might adopt them. Since 
you are so fond of Irish music, what say you to 
twenty-five of them in an additional number ' 
We could easily find this quantity of charming 
airs ; I will take care that you shall not want 
songs ; and I assure you that you will find it 
the most saleable of the whole. If you do not 
approve of Roy's wife, for the music's sake, we 
shall not insert it. Dell tak' the wars, is a 
charming song ; so is. Saw ye my Peggy ? 
there's nae luck about the house, well deserves 
a place ; 1 cannot say that O'er the hills and 
f"rawa strikes me as equal to your selection. 
1 his IS no my ain house is a great favourite air 
of mine ; and if you send me your set of it, 1 
will task my muse to her highest effort. What 
's your opinion oi I hae laid a hcrrin in sawt9 
1 like It much. Your Jacobite airs are pretty - 
and there are many others of the same kind' 
pretty—but you have not room for them. You 
cannot, 1 think, insert, Fy let us a' to the bridle, 
to any other words than its own. 



410 



BURNS' WORKS. 



What pleases me, as simple and naive, dis- 
gusts you as ludicrous and low. For this reason, 
Fye, gie me my coggie, sirs- — Fye, let us a' to 
the bridal, with several others of that cast, are, 
to me, highly pleasing ; while, Saw ye my father, 
or saw ye my Mother, delights rae with its dis- 
criptive simple pathos. Thus, my song, Ken 
ye what Meg o* the mill has gotten ? pleases 
myself so much, that I cannot try my hand at 
another song to the air ; so I shall not attempt 
it. I know you will laugh at all this ; but, 
** ilka man wears his belt his ain gait." 



No. XL VII. 
THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

October, 1793. 

Your last letter, my dear Thomson, was in- 
deed laden with heavy news. Alas, poor Ers- 
kine ! * The recollection that he was a coadju- 
tor in your publication, has, till now, scared me 
from writing to you, or turning ray thoughts on 
composing for you. 

I am pleased that you are reconciled to the 
air of the Qtiaker's Wife, though, by the bye, 
an old Highland gentleman, and a deep antiqua- 
rian, tells me it is a Gaelic air, and known by 
the name of Leiger 'm choss. The following 
verses I hope will please you, as an English song 
to the air : 

Thine am I, my faithful fair, 

Thine, my lovely Nancy, (p. 214.) 

The rest of your letter I shall answer at some 
other opportunity. 



No. XLVIII. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

MY GOOD SIR, 7th November, 1793 

After so long a silence, it gives rae peculiar 
pleasure to recognize your well known hand 
for I had begun to be apprehensive that all was 
not well with you. I am happy to find however, 
that your silence did not proceed from that cause, 
and that you have got among the ballads once 
more. 

I have to thank you for your English song to 
Leiger 'm choss, which I think extremly good, 
although the colouring is warm. Your friend 
Mr. Turnbull's songs have doubtless consider- 
able merit ; and as you have the command of 



• The Honourable A. Erskine, brother to Lord Kel 
ly, whose nielanclioly death Mr. Thomson had commu 
Qicated in an excellent letter, wliich he has suppressed. 



his manuscripts, I hope you may find out some 
that will answer as English songs to the airs yet 
unprovided. 



No. XLIX. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

December, 1793. 
Tell me how you like the following verses 
to the tune of Jo Janet, 

(Husband, husband, cease your strife, p. 213.) 
( Wilt thou be my dearie ? p. 242.) 



NoL. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

MY DEAR SIR, Edinburgh, \1th April, 1794. 

Owing to the distress of our friend for the 
loss of his child, at the time of his receiving 
your admirable but melancholy letter, I had 
not an opportunity 'till lately of perusing it. * 
How sorry am I to find Burns saying, " Canst 
thou not minister to a mind diseased ?" while 
he is delighting others from one end of the 
island to the other. Like the hypochondriac 
who went to consult a physician upon his case : 
Go, says the doctor, and see the famous Carlini, 
who keeps all Paris in good humour. Alas ! 
Sir, replied the patient, I am that unhappy 
Carlini ! 

Your plan for our meeting together pleases 
me greatly, and I trust that by some means or 
other it will soon take place ; but your Bac- 
chanalian challenge almost frightens me, for I 
am a miserable weak drinker ! 

Allan is much gratified by your good opinion 
of his talents. He has just begun a sketch 
from your Cotter's Saturday Night, and if it 
pleases himself in the design, he will probably 
etch or engrave it. In subjects of the pastoral 
or humorous kind, he is perhaps unrivalled by 
any artist living. He fails a little in giving 
beauty and grace to his females, and his colour- 
ing is sombre, otherwise his paintings and draw- 
ings would be in greater request. 

I like the music of the Sutnr's Dochter, 
and will consider whether it shall be added to 
the last volume; your verses to it are prett)- ; 
but your humorous English song, to suit Jo 
Janet, is inimitable. What think you of the air, 
" Within a mile of Edinburgh ?" It has always 
struck rae as a modern English imitation ; but 
is said to be Oswald's, and is so much liked, that 
I believe I must include it. The verses are lit- 



• A letter to Mr. Cunningham, to be found 
in p. 379. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



411 



tie better than namhy pamhy. Do you coa- 
sider it worth a stanza or two ? 



No. LI. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

MY DEAR SIR, Mayy 1794. 

I RETURN you the plates, with which I am 
highly pleased ; I would humbly propose, in- 
stead of the younkcr knitting stockings, to put 
a stock and horn into his hands. A friend of 
mine, who is positively the ablest judge on the 
subject I have ever met witli, and though an 
nnknown, is yet a superior artist with the liii- 
ritii i» quite charmed with Allan's manner. I 
got hi in a peep of the Gentle Shepherd; and 
he pronounces Allan a most original artist of 
great excellence. 

For my part, I look on Mr. Allan's choosing 
my favourite poem for his subject, to be one 
of the highest compliments I have ever re- 
ceived. 

I am quite vexed at Pleyel's being cooped up 
in France, as it will put an entire stop to our 
work. Now, and for six or seven months, / 
s/iall be (piite in song, as you shall see by and 
by. I got an air, pretty enough, composed by 
Lady EIizal»('rh Heron of Heron, wliich she 
calls The Banks of Cree. Cree is a beautiful 
romantic streaivi : and as her Ladyship is a par- 
ticular friend of mine, I have written the fol- 
lowing song to it. 



( The Banks of Cree, p. 226.) 



No. LIL 



TilE SAME TO THE SAME. 

July, 1794. 

Is there no news yet of Pleyel ? Or is your 

work to be at a dead stop, until the allies set 

our modern Orpheus at liberty from the sa- 

vasre thraldom of democratic discords ? Alas 



the day ! And 



! That auspicious 



period, pregnant with the happiness of mil 

lions.* — 

I have presented a copy of your songs to the 
daughter of a much-valued, and much-honoured 
friend of mine, Mr. Graham of Fintry. I wrote, 
an the blank side of the title page, the following 
address to the young lady. 



Here, where the Scottish muse immortal lives, 
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers join'd, 

Accept the gift ; though humble he who gives, 
Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind. 

So may no ruffian feeling in thy breast. 
Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among ; 

But peace attune thy gentle soul to rest, 
Or love ecstatic wake his seraph song. 

Or pity's notes, in luxury of tears, 

As modest want the tale of woe reveals ; 

While conscious virtue all the strain endears, 
And heaven-born piety her sanction seals. 



No. LIIL 



MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

Mv DEAR SIR, Eilhihurghy '[Qth Aug. 1794. 
I OWE you an a])ology for having so long de- 
layed to acknowledge the favour of your last. 
1 fear it will be as you say, I shall have no 
more songs from Pleyel till France and we are 
friends ; but, nevertheless, I am very desirous 
to be ]>rej)ared with the peetry, and as the sea- 
son approaches in which your muse of Coila vi- 
sits you, I trust I shall, as formerly, be frequent- 
ly gratified with the result of your amorous and 
tender interviews ! 



No. LIV. 



* A portion of this letter has been left out, for rca- 
lons tliat will be easily imagined — Currie. 



THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

SOth August, 1794. 

The last evening, as I was straying out and 
thinking of, O'er the hills and far awa, I 
spun the following stanza for it ; but whether 
my spinning will deserve to be laid up in store 
like the precious thread of the silk-worm, or 
brushed to the devil, like the vile manufacture 
of the S]nder, I leave, my dear Sir, to your usual 
candid criticism. I was pleased with several 
lines in it at first ; but I own, that now, it ap- 
pears rather a flimsy business. 

This is just a hasty sketch, until I see whe- 
ther it be worth a critique. We have many 
sailor songs ; but, as far as I at present recol- 
lect, they are mostly the effusions of the jovial 
sailor, not the wailings of his love-lorn mis- 
tress. I must here make one sweet exception 
— Sweet Annie frae the Sea-beach came. 
Now for the song. 

( On the seas and far away, p. 219.) 



412 



I give you leave to abuse this song, but do It 
in the spirit of christian meekness. 



BURNS'S WORKS. 

( Ca the ynu-es to the hnowes, p. 195.) 



No. LV. 



MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

MY DEAR SIR, Edinhvrgh, \6fh Sept. 1794. 

You have anticipated my opinion of, On the 
seas and far away ,- I do not think it one of 
your very happy productions, though it cer 
tainly contains stanzas that are worthy of all ac 
ceptation. 

The second is the least to my liking, parti 
cularly " Rullets, spare my only joy." Con 
found the bullets ! It might perhaps be object 
ed to the third verse, " At the starless mid- 
night hour," that it has too much grandeur of 
imagery, and that greater simj)licity of thought 
would have better suited the character of a sai- 
lor's sweetheart. The tune, it must be re- 
membered, is of the brisk, cheerful kind. Upon 
the whole, therefore, in my humble opinion, the 
song would be better adapted to the tune, if it 
consisted only of the first and last verses, with 
the chorusses. 



I shall give you my opinion of your other 
newly adopted songs my first scribbling fit. 



No. Lvr. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

Sept. 1794. 

I SHALL withdraw my, On the sens and far 
away, altogether : it is unequal, and unworthy 
the work. JNIaking a poem is like begetting a 
son : you cannot know whether you have a wise 
man or a fool, until you produce him to the 
world and try him. 

For that reason T send you the offspring of 
my brain, abortions and all ; and, as such, pray 
look over them, and forgive them, and burn 
them.* I am flattered at your adopting, Ca' 
the yowes to the knowes, as it was owing to me 
that ever it saw the light. About seven years 
ago I was well acquainted with a worthy little 
fellow of a clergyman, a Mr. Clunie, who sung 
it charmingly ; and, at my request, Mr. Clarke 
took it down from his singing. When I gave 
it to Johnson, I added some stanzas to the song, 
and mended others, but still it will not do for 
you. In a solitary stroll which I took to-day, 
I tried my hand on a few pastoral lines, follow- 
ing up the idea of the chorus, which I would 
preserve. Here it is, with all its crudities and 
imperfections on its head. 



* This Virgilian order of the poet should, I think, 
be disobeyed with respect to the song in question, 
the second stanza excepted. — Note by Air. Thomson. 

Doctors difl'cr, Tlie objecliou to the second Stanza 
does not strilic the Editor.— Currie. 



No. LVII. 
THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

Septemher, 1794. 

Do you know a blackguard Irish song, called 
Onayks water-fall ? The air is charming, 
and I have often regretted the want of decent 
verses to it. It is too much, at least for my 
humble rustic muse, to expect that every effort 
of hers shall have merit ; still I think that it is 
better to have mediocre vei-ses to a favourite 
air, than none at all. On this principle I have 
all along proceeded in the Scots Musical Mu- 
seum, and as that publication is in its last vo- 
lume, I intend the following song, to the air 
above mentioned, for that work. 

If it does not suit you as an editor, you may 
be pleased to have verses to it that you can sing 
before ladies. 

(Sae flaxen were her ringlets, p. 223.) 

Not to compare small things with great, my 
taste in music is like the mighty Frederick of 
Prussia's taste in painting : we are told that he 
frequently admired what the connoisseurs de- 
cried, and always without any hypocrisy con- 
fessed his admiration, I am sensible that my 
taste in music must be inelegant and vulgar, 
because people of undisputed and cultivated taste 
can find no merit in my favourite tunes. Still, 
because I am cheaply pleased, is that any rea- 
son why I should deny myself that pleasure ? 
Many of our strathspeys, ancient antl modern, 
give me the most exquisite enjoyment, where 
you and other judges would probably be show- 
ng disgust. For instance, I am just now mak- 
ing verses for JRothemnrche's Rant,' an air 
which puts me in raptures ; and in fact, unless 
I be pleased with the tune, I never can make 
verses to it. Hei-e I have Clarke on luy side, 
ho is a judge that 1 will })it against any of 
you. " Hothemvrche," he says, " is an air 
both original and beautiful ;" and on his recom- 
mendation I have taken the first part of the 
tune for a chorus, and the fourth or last part 
for the song. I am but two stanzas deep in the 
work, and possibly you may think, and justly, 
that the poetry is as little worth your attention 
as the music* 

I have begun anew, Z<et me in this ae night. 
Do you think that we ought to retain the old 
chorus ? 1 think we must retain both the old 



* In the original follow here two stanzas of the song. 
Lassie wi' the lint- white locks." 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



413 



chorus and the first stanza of the old soug. I 
do not altogether like the third line of the first 
stanza, but cannot alter it to please myself. I 
am just three stanzas deep in it. Would you 
have the denouement to be successful or other- 
wise ? — should she " let him in" or not. 

Did you not once propose The Sow's tail to 
Geordle, as an air for your work ? I am quite 
delighted with it ; but I acknowledge that is 
no mark of its real excellence. I once set about 
verses for it, which I meant to be in the alter- 
nate way of a lover and his mistress chanting 
together. I have not the pleasure of knowing 
IMrs. Thomson's Christian name, and yours, I 
am afraid, is rather burlesque for sentiment, 
else I had meant to have made you the hero 
and heroine of the little piece. 

How do you like the following epigram, 
which I wrote the other day on a lovely young 
girl's recovery from a fever ? Doctor Maxwell 
was the physician who seemingly saved her 
from the grave ; and to him I address the fol- 
lowing : — 



TO DR. MAXWELL, 

ON MISS JESSY STAIg's RECOVERV. 

Maxwell, if merit here you crave, 

That merit I deny : 
You save fair Jessy from the grave ! 
An angel could not die I 

God grant you patience with this stupid 
^istle '. 



No. LVIIL 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

I PERCEIVE the sprightly muse is now at- 
tendant upon her favourite poet, whose tiuwd- 
notes wild are become as enchanting as ever. 
She sai/s she lo'cs me best o' a, is one of the 
pleasantest table songs I have seen, and hence- 
forth shall be mine when the song is going 
round. I'll give Cunningham a copy ; he van 
more powerfully proclaim its merit. I am far 
from uudervaluing your taste for the strathsjiev 
music ; on the contrarj^, I think it highly ani- 
mating and agreeable, and that some of the 
strathspeys, wlu;n graced with such verses as 
yours, will make very pleasing songs, in the 
same way that rough Christians are tempered 
and softened by lovely woman, without wJiom, 
you know, they had been brutes. 

I am clear for having the Sow's tail, parti- 
cularly as you proposed verses to it are so ex- 
tre.Tiely promising. Geordie, as you observe, 
is a name only fit for burlesque composition. 
Mrs. Thomson's name (Katharine) is not at 



all poetical. Retain Jeanie, therefore, and 
make the other Jamie, or any other that sounds 
agreeably. 

Your Ca' the yewes, is a precious little mor- 
ceau. Indeed I am perfectly astonished and 
charmed with the eudless variety of your fancy. 
Here let me ask you, whether you never serious- 
ly turned your thoughts upon dramatic writing ? 
That is a field worthy of your genius, in which 
it might shine forth in all its splendour. One 
or two successful pieces upon the London stage 
would make your fortune. The rage at present 
is for musical dramas ; few or none of those 
which have appeared since the Uuenna, pos- 
sess much poetical merit : there is little in the 
conduct of the fable, or in the dialogue, to inter- 
est the audience. They are chiefly vehicles for 
music and pageantry. I thiuk you might produce 
a comic opera in three acts, which would live 
by the poetry, at the same time that it would be 
proper to take every assistance from her tune- 
ful sister. Part of the songs of course would 
be to our favourite Scottish airs ; the rest might 
be left with the Loudon composer — Storace for 
Drury-lane, or Shield i'or Covent-garden ; both 
of them very able and popular musicians. 1 be- 
lieve that interest and manoeuvring are often ne- 
cessary to have a drama brought on : so it may 
be with the namby pamby tribe of flowery 
scribblers ; but were you to address Mr. Slieri- 
dan himself by letter, and send him a dramatic 
piece, I am persuaded he would, for the honour 
of genius, give it a fair and candid trial. Ex- 
cuse me for obtruding these hints upon your con- 
sideration. * 



No. LIX. 
THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

Edinburgh, lith October, 1794.. 

Ti{E last eight days have been devoted to the 
re-examination of the Scottish collections. I 
have read, aud sung, and fiddled, and consider- 
ed, till I am half blind and wholly stupid. The 
few airs I liave added, are endowed. 

Peter Pindar has at length sent me all the 
songs I expected from him, which are in gener- 
al elegant and beautiful. Have you heard of a 
London collection of Scottish airs aud songs, 
just published by Mr. Ritson, an Englishman. 
I shall send you a copy. His introductory es- 
say on the subject is curious, and evinces great 
reading and research, but does not decide the 
question as to tlie origin of our melodies ; 
though he shows clearly that iNIr. Tytler, in his 
iugenious dissertation, has adduced no sort of 
pi oof of tLe hypothesis he wished to establish ; 
aud that his classitication of the airs, according 



• Our bard liaii before received tlie sanieadvipc, and 
certainly took it so far into coiisideiation, as to have 
cast about for a subject. 



414 



BURNS' WORKS. 



to the eras when they were composed, is mei-e 
fancy and conjecture. On John Pinkerton, Esq. 
he has no mercy ; but consigns him to damna- 
tion ! He snarls at my publication, on the score 
of Pindar being engaged to write songs for it ; 
uncandidly and unjustly leaving it to be inferred, 
that the songs of Scottish writers had been sent 
a-packing to make room for Peter's ! Of you he 
speaks with some respect, but gives you a pass- 
ing hit or two, for daring to dress up a little 
some old foolish songs for the Museum. HiS 
sets of the Scottish airs are taken, he says, from 
the oldest collections and the best authorities : 
many of them, however, have such a strange as- 
])ect, and are so unlike the sets which are sung 
by every person of taste, old or young, in town 
or country, that we can scarcely recognize the 
features of our favourites. By going to the oldest 
collections of our music, it docs not follow that 
we find the melodies in their original state. 
These melodies had been preserved, we know 
not how long, by oral communication, before be- 
ing collected and printed ; and as different per- 
sons sing the same air very differently, accord- 
ing to their accurate or confused recollection of 
it, so even stipposing the first collectors to have 
]>ossesscd the industry, the taste and discernment 
to choose the best they could hear, (which is far 
from certain), still it must evidently be a chance, 
whether the collections exhibit any of the me- 
lodies in the state they were first composed. 
]n selecting the melodies for my own collection, 
I have been as much guided by the living as bj 
the dead. Where these differed, I preferred the 
sets that appeared to me the most simple and 
beautiful, and the most generally approved ; 
and, without meaning any compliment to my 
own capability of choosing, or sj)eaking of the 
})ains I have taken, I flatter myself that my sets 
will be found equally freed from vulgar errors on 
the one hand, and affected graces on the other. 



No. LX. 



THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 19th October, 1794. 

By this morning's post I have your list, and, 
in general, I highly approve of it. I shall, at 
more leisure, give you a critique on the whole. 
Clarke goes to your town by to-day's fly, and 
I wish you would call on him and take his opi- 
nion in general : you know his taste is a stand- 
ard. He will return here again in a week or 
two ; so, please do not miss askmg for him. One 
thing I hope he will do, persuade you to a- 
dopt my favourite, Craiyie-bur?i-woo(J, in your 
selection : It is as great a favourite of his as of 
mine. The lady on whom it was made is one 
of the finest women in Scotland ; and, in fact, 
(enfre nous) is in a manner to me what Sterne's 
Eliza was to him — a mistress, a friend, or what 
you will, in the guileless simplicity of Platonic 



love. (Now don't put any of your squinting 
constructions on this, or have any clishmaclaiver 
about it among our acquaintances.) I assure 
you that to my lovely friend you are indebted for 
many of your best songs of mine. Do you think 
that the sober gin-horse routine of existence, 
could inspire a man with life, and love, and joy 
— could lire him with enthusiasm, or melt him 
with pathos, equal to the genius of your book ? 
— No ! no ! — Whenever I want to be more than 
ordinary in sonff : to be in some degree equal 
to your diviner airs — do you imagine I fast and 
prav for the celestial emanation ? Tout au 
contraire ! I have a glorious recipe ; the very 
one that for his own use was invented by the di- 
vinity of healing and poetry, when erst he piped 
to the flocks of Admetus. I put myself in a re- 
gimen of admiring a fine woman ; and in propor- 
tion to the adorability of her charms, in propor- 
tion you are delighted with my verses. The light- 
ning of her eye is the godhead of Parnassus, and 
the witchery of her smile the divinity of Heli- 
con ! 

To descend to business ; if you like my idea 
of, When .she cam be7i she babbit, the following 
stanzas of mine, altered a little from what they 
were formerly when set to another air, may per- 
haps do instead of worse stanzas. 

SAW YE MY PHELY. 

( Quasi dicat Phillis.) 

Tune—*' "When she came ben she bobbit." 

O saw ye my dear, my Phely ? 
O saw ye my dear, my Phely ^ 
She's down i' the grove, wi' a new love, 
She winna come hame to her Willie. 

AVhat says she, my dearest, my Phely ? 
What says she, my dearest, my Phely ? 
She lets thee to wit that she has thee forgot. 
And for ever disowns thee her Willie. 

O had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely ! 
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely ! 
As light as the air, and fause as thou's fair, 
; Thou's broken the heart o' thy AVillie. 



Now for a few miscellaneous remarks. The 
Posie (in the Museum), is my composition : 
the air was taken down from Mrs. Burns' 
voice. It is well known in the West Coun- 
try, but the old words are trash. By the bye, 
take a look at the tune again, and tell me if you 
do not think it is the original from which lios- 
Un Castle is composed. Th(5 second part, in 
particular, for the first two or three bars, is ex- 
actly the old air. Strathallans Lament is 
mine ; the music is by our right-trusty and de- 
servedly well-beloved, Allan INIasterton. Do- 
nocht-head, is not mine: I would give ten 
pounds it were. It appeared first in the Edin- 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



415 



burgh Herald ; and came to the Editor of that 
paper witli the Newcastle post-mark on it.* 
Whistle o'er the lave o't is mine ; the music 
said to Ihj by a John Bruce, a celebrated violin 
player in Dumfries, about the beginning of this 
century. This I know, Bruce, who was an 
honest man, though a rcd-wud Highlandman, 
constantly claimed it ; and by all the old musi- 
cal people here, is believed to be the author of it. 

Andrew and his cutty gun. The song to 
which this is set in the IMuseum, is mine ; and 
was composed on IMiss Euphemia IVIurray, of 
Lintrose, commonly and deservedly called the 
Flower of Strathmore. 

How long and dreary is the night. I met 
with some such words in a collection of songs 
somewhere, which I altered and enlarged ; and 
to please you, and to suit your favourite air, 1 
nave taken a stride or two across my room, and 
have arranged it anew, as you will find on the 
other page. 

(^How lo?ig and dreary is the night, p. 205.) 

Tell me how you like this. I differ from 
your idea of the expression of the tune. There 
is, to me, a great deal of tenderness in it. You 
cannot, in my opinion, dispense with a bass to 
your addenda airs. A lady of my acquaintance 
a noted j)erformer, plays and sings at the same 
time so charmingly, that I shall never bear to 
see any of her songs sent into the world as na- 
ked as Mr. Wbat-d'ye-call-um has done in his 
London collection.f 

These English songs gravel me to death. I 
have not that command of the language that I 
have of my native tongue. I have been at 
Duncan Gray, to dress it in English, but all I 
can do is deplorably stupid. For instance : 

(^Let not woman e'er complain, p. 209.) 

Since the above, I have been out in the coun- 
try taking a dinner with a friend, where I met 
with the lady whom I mentioned in the second 
page in this odds-and-ends of a letter. As usu- 
al, I got into song ; and returning home, I com- 
posed the following. 

( Sleep' st thou, or ivaWst thou, fairest creature, 
p. 235.) 

If you honour my verses by setting the air to 
them, I will vamp up the old song, and make 
it English enough to be understood. 

I enclose you a musical curiosity, an East 
Indian air, which you would swear was a Scot- 
tish one. I know the authenticity of it," as the 
gentleman who brought it over is a particular 
acquaintance of mine. Do preserve me the 
copy I send you, as it is the only one I have. 



» The reader will be curious to see this poem so 
highly praised by Burns. See p. 151. 
t Mr. Ititson. 



( ;iarke has set a bass to it, and I intend put- 
ting it into the Musical Museum. Here fol- 
low the verses I intend for it. 

( The aidd man, p. 225.) 

I would be obliged to you if you would pro- 
cure me a sight of Ritson's collection of Eng- 
lish songs, which you mention in your Utter. 
I will thank you for another information, and 
that as speedily as you please : whether this 
miserable drawling hotch-potch epistle has not 
completely tired you of my correspondence ? 



No. LXI. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

Edinburgh, 27th October, 1794-. 

I AM sensible, my dear friend, that a genuine 
poet can no more exist without his mistress than 
his meat. I wish I knew the adorable she, 
whose bright eyes and witching smiles have so 
often enraptured the Scottish bard ! thnt I might 
drink her sweet health when the toast is going 
round. Crait/ie-burn-wood, must certainly be 
ado])ted into my family, since she is the object 
of the song ; but in the name of decency, I must 
i)eg a new chorus verse from you. O to be ly- 
ing beyond thee, dearie, is perhaps a consum- 
mation to be wished, but will not do for singing 
in the company of ladies. The songs in your 
last will do you lasting credit, and suit the re- 
spective airs charmingly. I am perfectly of your 
opinion with respect to the additional airs. The 
idea of sending them into the world naked as 
they were born was ungenerous. They must all 
be clothed and made decent by our fiiend Clarke. 

I find 1 am anticipated by the friendly Cun- 
ningham, in sending your Ritson's Scotti.sh col- 
lection. Permit me, therefore, to present you 
with his English collection, which yon will re- 
ceive by the coach. I do not find his historical 
essay on Scottish song interesting. Your anec- 
dotes and miscellaneous remarks will, I am sure, 
be much more so. Allan has just sketclied a 
charming design from Maggie Latcder. She is 
dancing with such spirit as to electrify the piper, 
who seems almost dancing too, while he is play- 
ing with the most exquisite glee. 

I ara nmch inclined to get a small copy, and 
to have it engraved in the style of Ritson's 
prints. 

P. S — Pray, what do your anecdotes say 
concerning Maggie Lauder? was she a real 
personage, and of what rank ? You would sure- 
ly spier for her if you ca'd at AnstnUher 
town. 



416 



BaRNS' WORKS. 



No. LXII. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

Novemher, 1794. 
Many thanks to you, my dear Sir, for your 
present : it is a book of the utmost importance 
TO me. I have yesterday begun my anecdotes, 
&c. for your work. I intend drawing it up in 
the form of a letter to you, which will save me 
from the tedious dull business of systematic ar- 
rangement. Indeed, as all I have to say con- 
sists of unconnected remarks, anecdotes, scraps 
of old songs, &c. it would be impossible to give 
the work a beginning, a middle, and an end ; 
which the critics insist to be absolutely neces- 
sary in a work. In ray last, I told you my 
objections to the song you had selected for My 
lodging is on the cold ground. On my visit 
the other day to my fair Chloris, (that is the 
poetic name of the lovely goddess of my inspi- 
ration), she suggested an idea, which I, in my 
return from the visit, wrought into the follow- 
mg song : — 



{Chloris, p. 197. J 

How do you like the simplicity and tenderness 
of this pastoral ? I think it pretty well. 

I like you for entering so candidly and so 
kindly into the story of Ma cherc Amie. I as- 
sure vou, I was never more in earnest in my 
life, than in the account of that affair which I 
sent you in my last. Conjugal love is a passion 
which 1 deeply feel and highly venerate ; but, 
somehow, it does not make such a figure in 
poesy as that other species of the passion, 

" Where Love is liberty, and Nature law." 

Musically speaking, the first is an instrument 
of which the gamut is scanty and confined, but 
the tones inexpressioly sweet ; while tlie last 
has powers equal to all the intellectual modula- 
tions of the human soul. Still, I am a very 
poet in my enthusiasm of the pas-ion. The 
welfare and happiness of the beloved object is 
the first and inviolate sentiment that pervades 
mv soul ; and wh.atever pleasures I might wish 
for, or whatever might be the raptures they 
would give me, yet, if they interfere with that 
first principle, it is having these pleasures at a 
dishonest price ; and justice forbids, and gene- 
rosity disdains the pui chase! 

Despairing of my own powers to give you 
variety enough in English songs, I have been 
turning over old collections, to pick out songs 
of which the measure is something similar to 
what I want ; and with a little alteration, so as 
to suit the rhyme of the air exactly, to give you 
them for your work. Where the songs have 
hitherto been but little noticed, nor have ever 



been set to music, I think the shift a fair one. 
A song, which, under the same first verse, you 
will find in Ramsay's Tea- Table Miscellany, I 
have cut down for an English dress to your 
Dainty Davie, as follows . — 

(Chloe,p. 196.) 

You may think meanly of this, but take a 
look at the bomlyast original, and you will be 
surprised that I have made so much of it. I 
have finished my song to Rothemurche'' s Rant ; 
and you have Clarke to consult, as to the set of 
the air for singing. 

(^Lassie wV the lint-white locks, p. 208.) 

This piece has at least the merit of being a 
regular pastoral ; the vernal morn, the summer 
noon, the autumnal evening, and the winter 
night, are regularly rounded. If you like it, 
well : if not, I will insert it in the Museum. 

I am out of temper that you should set so 
sweet, so tender an air, as JDeil tak the wars, 
to the foolish old verses. You talk of the silli- 
ness of Saw ye my father ; by heavens, the 
odds is, gold to brass ! Besides, the old song, 
though now pretty well modernized into the 
Scottish language, is originally, and in the ear- 
ly editions, a bungling low imitation of the 
Scottish manner, by that genius Tom D'Urfey ; 
so has no pretensions to be a Scottish produc- 
tion. There is a pretty English song by She- 
ridan in the Dueiinn. to this air, which is out 
of sight superior to D'Urfey *s. It begins, 

" When sable night each drooping plant re- 
storing.'* 

The air, if I understand the expression of it 
properly, is the very native language of simpli- 
city, tenderness, and love. I have again gone 
over my song to the tune as follows.* 

Now for my English song to Nancy's to the 
Greenwood, &.c. 



{Marias Dwelling, p. 260. ) 

There is an air, The Caledonian Hunt's de- 
light, to which I wrote a song that you wil 
find in Johnson. Ye banks and braes o' bonn^ 
Doon ; this air, I think, might find a place a- 
mong your hundred, as Lear says of his knights. 
Do you know the history of the air ? It is cu- 
rious enough. A good many years ago, Mr. 
James Miller, writer in your good town, a gen- 
tleman whom possibly you know, was in com- 
pany with our friend Clarke ; and talking of 
Scottish music. Miller expressed an ardent am- 
bition to be able to compose a Scots air. Mr. 



♦ See the song in its first and best dress in p. 175, 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



4r 



Clarke, partly by way of joke, told him to keep 
to the black keys of the harpsichord, and pre- 
serve some kind of rhyme ; and he would in- 
fallibly compose a Scots air. Certain it is that, 
in a few days, Mr. JMiller produced the rudi- 
ments of an air, which Mr. Clarke, with some 
touches and corrections, fashioned into the tune 
in question. Rltson, you kuow, has the same 
btory of the Ulack Keys ; but this account 
which I have just given you, Mr. Clarke in- 
formed me of, several years ago. Now to shew 
you how difficult it is to trace the origin of our 
airs, I have heard it repeatedly asserted that this 
was an Irish air ; nay, I met with an Irish gen- 
tleman who affirmed he had heard it in Ireland 
among tlie old women ; while, on the other 
iand, a Countess informed me, that the first 
person who introduced the air into this country, 
was a baronet's lady of her acquaintance, who 
took down the notes from an itinerant piper in 
the Isle of Man. How difficult then to ascer- 
tain the truth respecting our poesy and music ' 
I, myself, have lately seen a couple of ballads 
sung through the fctreets of Dumfries, with 
my name at the head of them as the author, 
though it was the first time I had ever seen 
them. 

I thank you for admitting Craigie-hurn- 
wood s and I shall take care to furnish you with 
a new chorus. In fact, the chorus was not my 
work, but a part of some old verses to the air. 
If I can catch myself in a more than ordinarily 
propitious moment, I shall write a new Craigie- 
burn-wood altogether. My heart is much in 
the theme. 

I am ashamed, my dear fellow, to make the 
request ; 'tis dunning your generosity ; but in 
a moment, when I had forgotten whether I was 
rich or poor, I promised Chloris a copy of your 
songs. It wrings my honest pride to write you 
this ; but an ungracious request is doubly so 
by a tedious apology. To make you some a- 
mends, as soon as I have extracted the neces- 
sary information out of them, I will return you 
Ritson's volumes. 

The lady is not a little proud that she is to 
make so distinguished a figure in your collection, 
and I am not a little proud that I have it in 
my power to please her so much. Lucky it is 
for your patience that my paper is done, for 
when I am in a scribblbg humour, I know not 
when to give over. 



No. LXIII. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

MY GOOD SIR, \bth November, 1794. 

Since receiving your last, I have had ano- 
ther interview with Mr. Clarke, and a long con- 
sultation. He thinks the Caledonian Hunt is 



more Bacchanalian than amorous In its nature, 
and recommends it to you to match the air ac- 
cordingly. Pray did it ever occur to you how 
peculiarly well the Scottish airs are adapted for 
verses in the form of a dialogue ? The first 
part of the arr is generally low, and suited for 
a man's voice, and the second part in many in- 
stances cannot be sung, at concert pitch, but by 
a female voice. A song thus performed makes 
an agreeable variety, but few of ours aie writ- 
ten in this form : I wish you would think of it 
in some of those that remain. The only one of 
the kind you have sent me, is admirable, and 
will be an universal favourite. 

Your verses for Rothemurche are so sweetly 
pastoral, and your serenade to Chloris, for Deil 
tah the wars, so passionately tender, that I have 
sung myself into raptures with them. Your 
soug for My lodging is on the cold ground, is 
likewise a diamond of the first water ; I am 
quite dazzled and delighted by it. Some of your 
Chlorises I suppose have flaxen hair, from your 
partiality for this colour ; else we differ about 
it ; for I should scarcely conceive a woman to 
be a beauty, on reading that she had lint-white 
locks ! 

Farewell thou stream that tvinding jflows, I 
think excellent, but it is much too serious to 
come after Nancy : at least it would seem an 
incongruity to provide the same air with merry 
Scottish and melancholy English verses ! The 
more that the two sets of verses resemble each 
other in their general character, the better. 
Those you have manufactured for Dainty 
Davie, will answer charmingly. I am happy 
to find you have begun your anecdotes : I care 
not how long they be, for it is impossible that 
any thing from your pen can be tedious. Let 
me beseech you not to use ceremony in telling 
me when you wish to present any of your friends 
with the songs : the next carrier will bring you 
three copies, and you are as welcome to twenty 
as to a pinch of snuff. 



No. LXIV. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

\mh November, 1794i. 
You see, my dear Sir, what a punctual cor- 
respondent I am ; though indeed you may thank 
yourself for the tedium of my letters, as you 
have so flattered me on my horsemanship with 
my favourite hobby, and have praised the 
grace of his ambling so much, that 1 am scarce- 
ly ever off his back. For instance, this mor- 
ning, though a keen blowing frost, in my walk 
before breakfast, I finished my duet which you 
were pleased to praise so much. Whether I 
have uniformly succeeded, I will not say ; but 
here it is for you, though it is not an hour old. 
73 



418 



BURNS' WORKS. 



{OPhilly, happy he that day, p. 220.) 

Tell me honestly how you like it ; and point 
out whatever you think faulty. 

I am much pleased with your idea of singing 
our songs in alternate stanzas, and regret that 
you did not hint it to me sooner. In those that 
remain, I shall have it in ray eye. I remember 
your objections to the name Philly ; but it is 
the common abbreviation of Phillis. Sally, the 
only other name that suits, has, to my ear, a 
vulgarity aibout it, which unfits it for any thing 
except burlesque. The legion of Scottish poe- 
tasters of the day, whom your brother editor, 
Mr. Ritson, ranks with me, as my coevals, have 
always mistaken vulgarity for simplicity ; where- 
as, simplicity is as much eloignee from vulgarity 
on the one hand, as from affected point and puer- 
ile, conceit on the other. 

I agree with you as to the air, Craigie-hiirn- 
wood, that a chorus would in some degree spoil 
the effect, and shall certainly have none in my 
projected song to it. It is not however a case 
in point with Rothiemurchie ; there, as in Roy's 
Wife of Aldivalloch, a chorus goes, to my taste, 
well enough. As to the chorus going first, that 
is the case with Roys Wife, as well as Rothie- 
murchie. In fact, in the first part of both tunes, 
the rhyme is so peculiar and irregular, and on 
that irregularity depends so much of their beau- 
ty, that we must e'en take them with all their 
wildness, and humour the verse accordingly. 
Leaving out the starting note, in both tunes, has, 
I think, an effect that no regularity could coun- 
terbalance the want of. 



Try 

and 

Compare 
with 



IS 



lassie wi' the lint-white locks. 



Roy's wife of Aldivalloch. 
Lassie wi' the lint-white locks. 



Does not the tameness of the prefixed syllable 
strike you ? In the last case, with the true 
furor of genius, you strike at once into the wild 
originality of the air ; whereas in the first insi- 
pid method, it is like the grating screw of the 
pins before the fiddle is brought into tune. This 
is my taste ; if I am wrong, I beg pardon of the 
cognoscenti. 

The Caledonian Hunt is so charming, that 
it would make any subject in a song go down j 
but pathos is certainly its native tongue. Scot- 
tish Bacchanalians we certainly want, though the 
few we have are excellent. For instance, Tod- 
lin hame is, for wit and humour, an unparalleled 
composition ; and Andreio and his cutty gun is 
the work of a master. By the way, are you not 
quite vexed to think that those men of genius, 
for such they certainly were, who composed our 
fine Scottish lyrics, should be unknown ! It has 
given me many a heart-ache. Apropos to Bac- 
chanalian songs in Scottish ; I composed one 
yesterday for an air I like much.— Lwnps o^ pud 
ding. 



( Contented ui little, and cantie wV mair, p, 
197.) 

Since yesterday's penmanship, I have framed 
a couple of English Stanzas, by way of an Eng- 
lish song to Roys wife. You will allow me 
that in this instance, my English corresponds in 
sentiment with the Scottish. 

( Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy 9 p. 196.) 

Well ! I think this, to be done in two or three 
turns across ray room, and with two or three 
pinches of Irish Blackguard, is not so far amiss. 
You see I am determined to have my quantuna 
of applause from somebody. 

Tell my friend Allan (for I am sure that we 
only want the trifling circumstance of being 
known to one another, to be the best friends on 
earth), that I much suspect he has, in his plates, 
mistaken the figure of the stock and horn. I 
have, at last, gotten one ; but it is a very rude 
instrument. It is composed of three parts ; the 
stock, which is the hinder thigh-bone of a sheep, 
such as you see in a mutton-ham ; the horn, 
which is a common Highland cow's horn, cut 
off at the smaller end, until the aperture be large 
enough to admit the stock to be pushed up 
through the horn, until it be held by the thicker 
end of the thigh-bone ; and lastly, an oaten 
reed exactly cut and notched like that which 
you see every shepherd-boy have, when the 
corn stems are green and full-grown. The reed 
is not made fast in the bone, but is held by the 
lips, and plays loose in the smaller end of the 
stock ; while the stock, with the horn hanging 
on its larger end. is held by the hands in play- 
ing. The stock has six or seven ventiges on the 
upper side, and one back-ventige, like the com- 
mon flute. This of mine was made by a man 
from the braes of Athole, and is exactly what 
the shepherds wont to use in that country. 

However, either it is not quite properly bored 
in the holes, or else we have not the art of blow- 
ing it rightly ; for we can make little of it. If 
Mr. Allan chooses, I will send him a sight of 
mine ; as I look on myself to be a kind of bro- 
ther-brush with him. '* Pride in Poets is nae 
sin," and, I will say it, that I look ou Mr. Al- 
lan and Mr. Burns to be the only genuine and 
real painters of Scottish costume in the world. 



No. LXV. 

MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

2Sth November, 1794. 
I ACKNOWLEDGE, my dear Sir, you are not 
only the most punctual, but the most delectable 
correspondent I ever met with. To attempt 
flattering you never entered my head ; the truth 
is, I look back with surprise at my impudence. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



419 



in so frequently nibbling at lines and couplets 
of your incomparable lyrics, for which, perhaps, 
if you had served me right, you would have 
sent me to the devil. On the contrary, how- 
ever, you have all along condescended to invite 
my criticism with so much courtesy, that it 
ceases to be wonderful, if I have sometimes 
given myself the airs of a reviewer. Your last 
budget demands unqualified praise : all the songs 
are charming, but the duet is a chief (Vceuvre. 
Lumps of pudding shall certainly 'make one of 
my family dishes ; you have cooked it so capi 
tally, that it will please all palates. Do give 
us a few more of this cast, when you find your 
self in good spirits : these convivial sougs are 
more wanted than those of the amorous kind 
of which we have great choice. Besides, one 
does not often meet with a singer capable of 
giving the proper effect to the latter, while the 
former are easily sung, and acceptable to every 
l)ody. I participate in your regret that the an 
thors of some of our best songs are unknown ; it 
is provoking to every admirer of genius. 

I mean to have a picture painted from your 
beautiful ballad, The Soldier's return, to be en- 
graved for one of my frontispieces. The most 
interesting point of time appears to me, when 
she first recognizes her ain dear Willy, " She 
gaz'd, she redden'd like a rose." The three lines 
immediately following, are no doubt more im- 
pressive on the reader's feelings ; but were the 
painter to fix on these, then you'll observe the 
animation and anxiety of her countenance is 
gone, and he could only represent her fainting 
in the soldier's arms. But I submit the matter 
to you, and beg your opinion. 

Allan desires me to thank you for your ac- 
curate description of the stock and horn, and 
for the very gratifying compliment you pay him 
in considering him worthy of standing in a niche 
by the side of Burns in the Scottish Pantheon. 
He has seen the rude instrument you describe, 
so does not want you to send it ; but wishes to 
know whether you believe it to have ever been 
generally used as a musical pipe by the Scottish 
shepherds, and when, and in what part of the 
country chiefly. I doubt much if it was capa- 
ble of any thing but routing and roaring. A 
friend of mine says, he remembers to have heard 
one in his younger days (made of wood instead 
of your bone), and that the sound was abomin- 
able. 

Do not, I beseech you, return any books. 



Jacobite song, in the Museum, to There'll never 
he peace till Jamie comes hame, would not so 
well consort with Peter Pindar's excellent love- 
song to that air, I have just framed for you the 
following : 

X^y Nannie's awa, p. 212.) 

How does this please you ? As to the point 
of time for the expression, in your proposed 
print from my Sodger's return : It must cer- 
tainly be at — " She gazed." The interesting 
dubiety and suspense, taking possession of her 
countenance ; and the gushing fondness, with 
a mixture of roguish playfulness in his, strike 
me, as things of which a master will make a 
great deal. la great haste, but in great truth, 
yours. 



No. LXVI. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

December, 1794-. 
It is, I assure you, the pride of my heart to 
do any thing to forward, or add to the value of 
your book : and as I agree with you that the 



No. LXVII. 
THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

January, 1795. 

I FEAR for my songs: however, a few may 
please, yet originality is a coy feature in com- 
position, and in a multiplicity of efforts in the 
same style, disappears altogether. For these 
three thousand years, we poetic folks have been 
describing the spring, for instance ; and as the 
spring continues the same, there must soon be 
a sameness in the imagery, &c. of these said 
rhyming folks. 

A great critic, Aiken on songs, says, that 
love and wine are the exclusive themes for song 
writing. The following is on neither subject, 
and consequently is no song ; but will be al- 
lowed, I think, to be two or three pretty good 
prose thoughts, inverted into rhyme. 

(^A man's a man for a that, p. 67.) 

I do not give you the foregoing song for your 
book, but merely by way of vive la bagatelle ; 
for the piece is not really poetry. How will 
the following do for Crai gie-burn-7oood ? 

{Siveetfa's the eve on Craigie-burn, p. 224.) 

Farewell ! God bless you. 



No. LXVIII. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

MY DEAR SIR, Edinburgh, 30th Jan. 1796. 

I THANK you heartily for Nannie's awa, as 
well as for Craigie-burn, which I think a very 
comely jjuir. Your observation on the difficul- 



420 



BURNS' WORKS. 



ty of original writing in a number of efforts, in 
the same style, strikes rae very forcibly ; and it 
has again and again excited my wonder to find 
you continually surmounting this difficulty, in 
the many delightful songs you have sent me. 
Your five la bagatelle song, For a' that, shall 
undoubtedly be included in my list. 



No. LXIX. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

February/, 1795. 
Here is another trial at your favourite air. 

( O let me in this ae night, and Answer, 
;). 217.") 

I do not know whether it will do. 



No. LXX. 
THE SAME TO THE SAIVIE. 

Fcclefechan, 7th Feb. 1795. 

MY DEAR THOMSOK, 

You cannot have any idea of the predica- 
ment in which I write to you. In the course 
of my duty as supervisor (in which capacity I 
have acted of late) I came yesternight to this 
unfortunate, wicked, little village. I have gone 
forward, but snows of ten feet deep have im- 
peded my progress : I have tried to " gae back 
the gate I cam again," but the same obstacle 
has shut me up within insuperable bars. To add 
to my misfortune, since dinner, a scraper has 
been torturing catgut, in sounds that would 
have insulted the dying agonies of a sow, under 
the hands of a butcher, and thinks himself, on 
that very account, exceeding good company. In 
fact, I have been in a dilemma, either to get 
drunk, to forget these miseries ; or to hang my- 
self, to get rid of them : like a prudent man, 
(a character congenial to my every thought, 
word, and deed), I, of two evils have chosen 
the least, and am very drunk, at your service !* 

I wrote you yesterday fiom Dumfries. I 
had not time then to tell you all I wanted to 
say ; and heaven knows, at present, I have not 
capacity. 

Do you know an air — I am sure you must 
know it, We'll gang nae mair to yon toicn : I 
think, in slowish time, it would make an excel- 
lent song. I am highly delighted with it; and 
if you should think it worthy of your attention, 
J have a fair dame in my eye to whom I would 
consecrate it. 



As I am just going to bed, I wish you a good 

ight. 



No. LXXI. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

'ihth February, 1795. 

I HAVE to thank you, my dear Sir, for two> 
epistles, one containing Let me in this ae night ; 
and the other from Ecclefechan, proving, that 
drunk or sober, your " mind is never muddy." 
You have displayed great address in the above 
song. Her answer is excellent, and at the same 
time takes away the indelicacy that otherwise 
would have attached to his entreaties. I like 
the song as it now stands very much, 

I had hopes you would be arrested some days 
at Ecclefechan, and be obliged to beguile the 
tedious forenoons by song making. It will 
give rae pleasure to receive the verses you in- 
tend for, O xvat ye who's in yon town ? 



No. LXXII. 



THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

May, 1795. 
(The Woodlark,p, 2S7.) 

Let rae know your very first leisure how you 
like this song. 

( Long, long the night, p. 207. ) 

How do you like the foregoing ? The Irish 
air, Humours of Glen, is a great favourite of 
mine, and as, except the silly stuff in the Foor 
Soldier, there are not any decent verses for it, 
I have written for it as follows : — 

( Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lanils 
reckon, p. 195.) 

('Twas na her bonnie blue e'e was my ruin, 
p. 237.) 

Let me hear from you. 



* The bard must have been tipsy indeed, to abuse 
iwcet Ecclefechan at this rate. 



No. LXXIII. 

MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

You must not think, my good Sir, that I 
have anv intention to enhance the value of my 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



421 



gift, when I say, In justice to tlio ingenious and 
worthy artist, that the design and execution of 
The Cottcr^s SatuTclay Night is, iu my oj)i- 
nion, one of the happiest productions of Allan's 
pencil. I sliall be grievously disappointed if 
you are not quite pleased with it. 

The figure intended for your portrait, I think 
strikingly like you, as far as I can remember 
your phiz. This should make the piece inter- 
esting to your family every way. Tell me 
whether Mrs. Burns finds you out among the 
figures. 

I cannot express the feeling of admiration 
with which I have read your pathetic Address 
to the Woodlark, your elegant Pmiegrjric on 
Caledonia, and your affecting verses on Chlo- 
ris' illncxs. Every repeated perusal of these 
gives new delight. The other song to Laddie 
lie near me, though not equal to these, is very 
pleasing. 



No. LXXIV. 

THE POET TO lAIR. THOMSON. 

{How cruel are the parents, p. ^Oi. ) 

(Mark 1/onder pomp of costly fashion, p. 211.) 

Well ! this is not amiss. You see how I 
answer your orders : your tailor could not be 
more punctual. I am just now in a high fit 
of poetizing, provided that the strait-jacket of 
criticism don't cure me. If you can in a post 
or two administer a little of the intoxicating 
potion of your applause, it will raise your hum- 
ble servant's phrenzy to any height you want. 
I am at this moment " holding high converse" 
with the Muses, and have not a word to throw 
away on such a prosaic dog as you are. 



No. LXXV. 
THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

May, 1795. 
Ten thousand thanks for your elegant pre- 
sent ; though I am ashamed of the value of it, 
being bestowed on a man who his not by any 
means merited such an instance of kindness, I 
have shown it to two or three judges of the 
first abilities here, and they all agree with me 
in classing it as a first-rate production. My 
phiz is " sae kcn'^peckle," that the very joiner's 
apprentice whom Airs. Burns employed to break 
Tip the parcel (I was out of town that day) 
knew it at once. INIy most grateful compli- 
ments to Allan, who has honoured my rustic 
muse so much with his masterly pencil. One 



strange coincidence is, that the little one who 
is making the felonious attempt on the cat's tail, 
is the most striking likeness of an " ill-deodie, 
d — n'd, wee, rumble-garie, urchin" of mine, 
whom, from that propensity to witty wicked- 
ness and manfu' mischief, which, even at twa 
days auld, I foresaw would form the striking- 
features of his disposition, I named Willie Nicoll, 
after a certain friend of mine, who is one of the 
musters of a grammar-school in a city which 
shall be nameless. ■ 

Give the enclosed epigram to my mnch- 
valued friend Cunningham, and tell him that 
on Wednesday I go to visit a friend of his, to 
whom his O'iendly partiality in speaking of me, 
in a manner introduced me — I mean a well 
known military and literary character, ColoneF 
Dirom. 

You do not tell me how you liked my two 
last songs. Are they condemned ? 



No. LXXVI. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

13th May, 1795. 

It gives me great pleasure to find that you 
ai'e all so well satisfied with Mr. Allan's pro- 
duction. The chance resemblance of your little 
fellow, whose promising disposition appeared so 
very early, and suggested whom he sliould be 
named after, is curious enough. I am acquaint- 
ed with that person, who is a prodigy of learn- 
ing and genius, and a pleasant fellow, though 
no saint. 

You really make me blush when you tell mo 
you have not merited the drawing from me. I 
do not think I can ever repay you, or sufllicient- 
ly esteem And respect you for the liberal and 
kind manner in which you have entered into 
the spirit of my undertaking, which could not 
have been perfected without you : So I beg you 
would not make a fool of me agaui, by speaking 
of obligation. 

I like your two last songs very much, and 
am happy to find you are in such a high fit of 
poetizing. Long may it last. Clarke has made 
a fine pathetic air to Mallet's superlative ballad 
of William and Margaret, and is to give it to 
me, to be enrolled among the elect. 



No. LXXVII. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

In Whistle and III come to ye, my lad, the 
iteration of that line is tiresome to my ear. 
Here goes what I think is an improvement : 



422 



BURNS' WORKS. 



O whistle, and FU come to ye, my lad ; 
O whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad ; 
Tho' father, and mother, and a' should gae mad. 
Thy Jeany will ventm-e wi' ye, my lad. 

In fact, a fair dame at whose shrine I, the 
Priest of the Nine, offer up the incense of Par- 
nassus ; a dame whom the Graces have attired 
in witchcraft, and whom the Loves have arm- 
ed with lightning, a Fair One, herself the he- 
roine of the song, insists on the amendment ; 
and dispute her commands if you dare ! 

( O this is no my ain lassie, p. 238.) 

Do you know that you have roused the tor- 
pidity of Clarke at last ? He has requested me 
to write three or four songs for him, which he 
is to set to music himself. The enclosed sj^eet 
contains two songs for him, which please to 
present to my valued friend Cunningham. 

I enclose the sheet open, both for j our in- 
spection, and that you may copy the song, O 
bonnie was yon rosie brier. I do not know 
whether I am right ; but that song pleases me, 
and as it is extremely probable that Clarke's 
newly roused celestial spark will soon be smoth- 
ered in the fogs of indolence, if you like the 
song, it may go as Scottish verses, to the air of, 
/ wish jny love was in a mire ; and poor Er- 
skine's English lines may follow. 

I enclose you For a' that and a' that, which 
was never in print : it is a much superior song 
to mine. I have been told that it was com- 
posed by a lady. 



( Now Spring has clad the grove in green, p. 

214.) 

( O bonnie ivas yon rosy brier, p. 216.) 

Written on the blank leaf of a copy of the last 
edition of my poems, presented to the lady, whom, 
in 80 many fictitious reveries of passion, but with 
the most ardent sentiments of real friendship, I 
have so often sung under the name of Chloris : 

'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend, 

Nor thou the gift refuse, 
Nor with unwilling ear attend 

The moralizing muse. 

"Since thou, in all thy youth and charms, 

Muit bid the world adieu, 
(A world Against peace in constant arms) 

To join the fiiendly few. 

Since thy gay morn of life o'ercast, 

Chill came the tempest's lour ; 
(And ne'er misfortune's eastern blast 

Did nip a fairer flower )« 

Since life's gay scenes must chaj-m no more, 
Still much is left behind : ' 



Still nobler wealth hast thou in store, 
The comforts of the mind ! 

Thine is the self-approving glow, 
On conscious honour's part ; 

And, dearest gift of heaven below. 
Thine friendship's truest heart. 

The joys refined of sense and taste, 
With every muse to rove ; 

And doubly were the poet blest 
These joys could he improve. 



Une bagatelle de I'amitie. 



No. LXXVIII. 



MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

MY DEAR SIR, Edinhnrgh, 3d Aug. 179.7. 

This will be delivered to you by a Dr. Brian- 
ton, who has read your works, and pants for 
the honour of your acquaintance. I do not 
know the gentleman, but his friend, who applied 
to me for this introduction, being an excellent 
young man, I have no doubt he is worthy of all 
acceptation. 

My eyes have just been gladdened, and my 
mind feasted, with your last packet — full of 
pleasant things indeed. What an imagination 
is yours ! It is superfluous to tell you that I 
am delighted with all the three songs, as well as 
with your elegant and tender verses to Chloris. 

I am sorry you should be induced to alter 
O whistle and I'll come to ye, my lad, to the 
prosaic line, Thy Jeany, will venture wi" ye my 
lad. I must be permitted to say, that I do not 
think the latter either reads or sings so well as 
the former. I wish, therefore, you would in my 
name petition the charming Jeany, whoever she 
be, to let the line remain unaltered.* 

I should be happy to see Mr. Clarke produce 
a few airs to be joined to your verses. Every 
body regrets his writing so very little, as every 
body acknowledges his ability to write well. 
Pray, was the resolution formed coolly before 
dinner, or was it a midnight vow made over a 
bowl of punch with the bard ? 

I shall not fail to give Mr. Cunningham what 
you have sent him. 

P. S. — The lady's For a that and a' that is 
sensible enough, but no more to be compared to 
yours than I to Hercules. 



* The Editor, who has heard the heroine of this song 
sing it herself in the very spirit of arch simplicity that 
it requires, thinks Mr. Thomson's petition unreason- 
able— .Ci'rrie. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



43d 



No. LXXIX. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

ENGLISH .SONG. 

Tune—" Let me in this ae uight." 

Forlorn, my love, no comfort near, 
Far, far from thee, I wander here ; 
Far, far from thee, the fate severe 
At which I most repine, love. 

O wert thou, love, but near me, 
Sut near, near, near me ; 
How kindly thou wouldst cheer me, 
And mingle sighs with mine, love. 

Around me scowls a wintry sky. 
That blasts each bud of hope and joy ; 
And shelter, shade, nor home have I, 
Save in these arms of thine, love. 
O wert, ^c. 

Cold, alter'd friendship's cruel part, 

To poison fortune's ruthless dart — 

Let me not break thy faithful heart, 

And say that fate is mine, love. 

O wert, ^c. 

But dreary tho' the moments fleet, 
O let me think we yet shall meet ! 
That only ray of solace sweet 
Can on thy Chloris shine, love. 
O wert, Sfc. 

How do you like the foregoing ? I have 
written it within this hour : so much for the 
speed of my Pegasus ; but what say you to his 
bottom ? 



No. LXXX. 

THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

(Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang 
glen, p. 206. ) 

FRAGMENT. 

Tune—" The Caledonian Hunt* s delight." 

Why, why tell thy lover, 

Bliss he never must enjoy ; 
Why, why undeceive him, 

And give all his hopes the lie. 
O why, while fancy, raptured, slumbers, 

Chloris, Chloris alF the theme. 
Why, why wouldst thou, cruel, 

Wake thy lover from his dream. 



Such is the peculiarity of th» rliynre of thi» 
air, that I find it impossible to make another 
stanza to suit it. 

I am at present quite occupied with the charm- 
ing sensations of the toothache, so have not a 
word to spare. 



No. LXXX I. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

MY DEAR SIR, 3d JtCtlC, 1795. 

Your English verses to Let me in this ae 
night, are tender and beautiful ; and your bal- 
lad to the " Lothian lassie" is a master-piece 
for its humour and naivete. The fragment for 
the Caledonian Hunt is quite suited to the ori- 
ginal measure of the air, and, as it plagues you 
so, the fragment must content it. I would ra- 
ther, as I said before, have had Bacchanalian 
words, had it so pleased the poet ; but, never- 
theless, for what we have received. Lord make 
us thankful ! 



No. LXXXIL 

THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

bth Feb. 1796. 
O JRobby Hums are ye sleeping yet ? 
Or are ye wauking, 1 would ivit 9 

The pause you have made, my dear Sir, is 
awful ! Am I never to hear from you again ? 
I know and I lament how much you have been 
afflicted of late, but I trust that returning health 
and spirits will now enable you to resume the 
pen, and delight us with your musings. I have 
still about a dozen Scotch and Lish airs that I 
wish " married to immortal verse." We have 
several true born Lish men on the Scottish list ; 
but they are now naturalized, and reckoned our 
own good subjects. Indeed we have none bet- 
ter. I believe I before told you that I have been 
much urged by some friends to publish a col- 
lection of all our favourite airs and songs in oc- 
tavo, embellished with a number of etchings by 
our ingenious friend Allan ; what is your opi- 
nion of this ? 



No. LXXXIIL 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

February, 1790. 
Many thanks, my dear Sir. for \our haud- 
eome, elegant piescnt to Mrs. B . and for 



424 



BURNS' WORKS. 



my remaining vol. of P. Pindar. — Peter is a 
delightful fellow, and a first favourite of mine. 
I am raucli pleased with your idea of publish- 
ing a collection of our songs in octavo with 
etchings. I am extremely willing to lend eve- 
ry assistance in my power. The Irish airs I 
shall cheerfully undertake the task of finding 
verses for. 

I have already, you know, equipt three with 
words, and the other day I strung up a kind of 
rhapsody to another Hibernian melody, which I 
admire much. 

{Hey for a lass wC a tocher , p. 238.) 

If this will do, you have now four of my 
Irish engagement. In my by-past songs, I dis- 
like one thing ; the name Chloris — I meant it 
as the fictitious name of a certain lady ; but, 
on second thoughts, it is a high incongruity to 
have a Greek appellation to a Scottish pastoral 
ballad. — Of this, and some things else, in my 
next : I have more amendments to propose. — 
What you once mentioned of " flaxen locks" 
is just : they cannot enter into an eki/ant de- 
scription of beauty. Of this also again — God 
bless you ! * 



No. LXXXIV. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET. 

YouB Hey for a lass wV a tocher, is a most 
excellent song, and with you the subject is 
something new indeed. It is the first time I have 
seen you debasing the god of soft desire, into an 
amateur of acres and guineas. — 

I am happy to find \ou approve of my pro- 
posed octavo edition. Allan has designed and 
etched about twenty plates, and I am to have 
my choice of them for that work. Indepen- 
dently of the Hogarthian humour with which 
they abound, they exhibit the character and 
costume of the Scottish peasantry with inimi- 
table felicity. In this respect, he himself says, 
they will far exceed the aquatinta plates he did 
for the Gentle Shepherd, because in the etching 
he sees clearly what he is doing, but not so 
with the aquatinta, which he could not manage 
to his mind. 

The Dutch boors of Ostade are scarcely more 
characteristic and natural than the Scottish 
figures in those etchings. 



• Our Poet never explained what name he would 
have substituted for Chloris.— A'ofe by Mr. Thomson. 



No. LXXXV. 

THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

April, 1796. 
Alas, my dear Thomson, I fear it will be 
some time ere I tune my lyre again ! •' By 
Babel streams I have sat and wept," almost ever 
since I wrote you last : I have only known ex- 
istence by the pressure of the heavy hand of 
sickness, and have counted time by the reper- 
cussions of pain ! Rheumatism, cold, and fever 
have formed to me a terrible combination. I 
close my eyes in misery, and open them with- 
out hope. I look on the vernal day, and say, 
with poor Ferguson—^ 

" Say wherefore has an all-indulgent Heaven 
" Light to the comfortless and wretched given ?" 

This will be delivered to you by a Mrs. Hy- 
slop, landlady of the Globe Tavern here, which 
for these many years has been my howff, and 
where our friend Clarke and I have had many 
a merry squeeze. I am highly delighted with 
Mr. Allan's etchings. Wuo'd and married 
and a' is admirable ! The grouping is beyond 
all praise. The expression of the figures, con- 
formable to the story in the ballad, is absolutely 
faultless perfection. I ne.\'t admire Turnim- 
spike. What I like least is, Jenny said to 
Jncliy. Besides the female being in her ap- 
pearance if you take her stoop- 
ing into the account, she is at least two inches 
taller than her lover. Poor Cleghorn ! I sin- 
cerely sympathize with him ! Happy I am 
to think that he yet has a well-grounded 
hope of health and enjoyment in this world. 
As for me — but that is a * * * * • sub- 
ject ! 



No LXXXVI. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET 

Uh May, 1796. 

I NEED not tell you, my good Sir, what con- 
cern the receipt of your last gave me, and how 
much I sympathize in your sufferings. But 
do not, I beseech you, give yourself up to de- 
spondency, nor speak the language of de- 
spair. The vigour of your constitution I trust 
will soon set you on your feet again ; and then 
it is to be hoped you will see the wisdom and 
the necessity of taking due care of a life so va- 
luable to your family, to your friends, and to 
the world. 

Trusting that your next will bring agreeable 
accounts of your convalescence, and returning 
good spirits, I remain, with sincere regard 
yours, 

P. S. Mrs. llyslop I doubt not delivered the 
gold seal to you in good condition. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



425 



No. LXXXVII. 
THE POET TO MR. THOMSON. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

I ONCE mentioned to you an air which I have 
long admired — IIere*s a health to them that's 
awa, hitiei/, but I forget if you took any notice 
of it. I have just been trying to suit it with 
verses ; and I beg leave to recommend the air 
to your attention once more. I have only be- 
gun it. 



(^Here's a health to arte Ilo'e dear, p. 20i.) 



No. LXXXVIII. 
THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

This will be delivered by a Mr. Lewars, a 
young fellow of uncommon merit. As he will 
be a day or two in town, you will have leisure, 
if you choose, to write me by him ; and if you 
have a spare half hour to spend with him, I 
shall place your kindness to my account. I 
have no copies of the songs I have sent you, 
and I have taken a fancy to review them all, 
and possibly may mend some of them ; so when 
you have complete leisure, I will thank you for 
either the originals, or copies. * I had rather 
be the author of five well-written songs than of 
ten otherwise. I have great hopes that the ge- 
nial influence of the approaching summer will 
set me to rights, but as yet I cannot boast of 
returning health. I have now reason to believe 
that my complaint is a flying gout : a sad busi- 
ness ! 

Do let me know how Cleghorn is, and re- 
member me to him. 

This should have been delivered to you a 
month ago. I am still very poorly, but should 
like much to hear from you. 



No. LXXXIX. 

THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

Brow, on the Solway -frith, \9Jh July, 1796. 

After all my boasted independence, curst 
necessity compels me to implore you for five 



« It is needless to say, that this revlsal Burns did 
not live to perform. 



pounds. A criiel of a haberdasher, 

to whom I owe an account, taking it into his 
head that I am dying, has commeucod a pro- 
cess, and will iufallably put me into jail. Do, 
for God's sake, send me that sum, and that by 
return of post. Forgive me this earnestness, 
but the horrors of a jail have made me half dis- 
tracted. I do not ask all this gratuitously ; for, 
upon returning health, I hcreliy promise and en- 
gage to furnish you with five pounds worth of 
the neatest song genius you have seen. I tried 
my hand on " Rothiemurchic" this morning. 
The measure is so difficult, that it is impossible 
to infuse much genius into the linos ; they are 
on the other side. Forgive, forgive mc ! 

(Fairest maid on Devon Banks, ji. 200.) 



No. XC. 
MR. THOMSON TO THE POET 

MY DEAR SIR, Wth Jul)/, 1796. 

Ever since I received your melancholy letter 
by Mrs. Hyslop, I have been ruminating in 
what manner I could endeavour to alleviate 
your sufferings. Again and again I thought of 
a pecuniary offer, but the recollection of one of 
your letters on this subject, and the fear of of- 
fending your independent spirit, checked my re- 
solution. I thank you heartily, therefore, for 
the frankness of your letter of the 12th, and 
with great pleasure enclose a draft for the very 
sum I proposed sending. Would I were the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer but for one dav, 
for your sake. 

Pray, my good Sir, is it not possible for you 
to muster a volume of poetry ? If too much 
trouble to you in the present state of your 
health, some literary friend might be found 
here, who would select and arrange from your 
manuscripts, and take upon him the task of 
Editor. In the meantime it could be advertis- 
ed to be published by subscription. Do not 
shun this mode of obtaining the value of your 
labour ; remember Pope published the Iliad by 
subscription. Think of this, my dear Burns, 
and do not reckon me intrusive with my ad- 
vice. You are too well convinced of the re- 
spect and friendship I bear you, to impute any 
thing I say to an unworthy motive. Yours 
faithfully. 

The verses to " Rothiemurchie" wUl answer 
finely. I am happy to see you can still tune 
your lyre. 



74 



GLOSSARY. 



The ch and gh have always the guttural sound. The sound of the English diphthong oo, is 
commonly spelled ou. The French «, a sound which often occurs in the Scottish language, 
is marked oo, or ui. The a in genuine Scottish words, except when forming a diphthong, 
or followed by an e mute after a single consonant, sounds generally like the broad English 
a in -wall The Scottish diphthong <r, always, and ea, very often, sound like the French e 
masculine. The Scottish diphthong ey^ sounds like the Latin ei. 



A\ All 

Aback, away, aloor 

Abeigh, at a shy distance 

Aboon, above, up 

Abread, abroad, in sight 

A breed, in breadth 

Addle, putrid water, &c. 

Ae, one. 

Atf, off: AfFloof, unpremeditated 

Afore, before 

Aft, oft 

Aften, often 

Agley, off the right line; wrong 

Ablins, perhaps 

Ain, own 

Airle-penny, Airles, earnest money 

Aim, iron 

Aith, an oath 

Aits, oats 

Aiver, an old horse 

Aizle, a hot cinder 

A lake, alas 

A lane, alone 

A k wart, awkward 

Amaist, almost 

Amang, among 

An', and ; if 

Ance, once 

Ane, one; and 

Anent, over against 

Anither, another 

Ase, ashes 

Asklent, asquint ; aslant 

Asteer, abroad ; stirring 

Athart, athwart 

Aught, possession ; as, In a' my aught, in all 
my possession 

Auld lang syne, olden time, days of other 
years 

Auld, old 

Anldfarran, or, auld farrant, sagacious, cun- 
ning, prudent 

(1) 



Ava, at all 

Awa', away 

Awfu', awful 

Awn, the beard of barley, oats, &c. 

Awnie, bearded 

Ayont, beyond 



BA', ball 

Backets, ash boards 

Backlins, coming ; coming back, returning 
Back, returning 
Bad, did bid 
Baide, endured, did stay 
Baggie, the belly 
Bainie, having large bones, stout 
Bairn, a chUd 

Bairntime, a family of children, a brood 
Baith, both 
Ban, to swear 
Bane, bone 

Bang, to beat ; to strive 
Bardie, diminutive of bard 
Barefit, barefooted 
Barmie, of, or like barm 
Batch, a crew, a gang 
Batts, bots 
Baudrons, a cat 
Bauld, bold 
Bawk, bank 

Baws'nt, having a white stripe down the face 
Be, to let be ; to give over ; to cease 
Bear, barley 

Beastie, diminutive of beast 
Beet, to add fuel to fire 
Beld, bald 
Belyve, by and by 

Ben, into the spence or parlour ; a spence 
Benlomond, a noted mountain in Dumbarton- 
shire 
Bethankit, grace after meat 
Beuk, a book 
Bicker, a kind of wooden dish ; a short race 



GLOSSARY. 



Bie, or Bield, shelter 

Bien, wealthy, plentiful 

Big, to build 

Biggin, building ; a house 

Biggit, built 

Bill, a bull 

Billie, a brother ; a young fellow 

Bing, a heap of grain, potatoes, &c. 

Birk, birch 

Birken-shaw, Birchen-wood-shaw, a small 

wood. 
Birkie, a clever fellow 
Birring, the noise of partridges, &c. when they 

spring 
Bit, crisis, nick of time 
Bizz, a bustle, to buzz 

Blastie, a shrivelled dwarf; a term of contempt 
Blastit, blasted 
Blate, bashful, sheepish 
Blather, bladder 

Bladd, a flat piece of any thing ; to slap 
Blaw, to blow, to boast 
Bleerit, bleared, sore with rheum 
Bleerit and blin', bleared and blind 
Bleezing, blazing 
Blellum, an idle talking fellow 
Blether, to talk idly ; nonsense 
Bleth'rin', talking idly 
Blink, a little while ; a smiling look ; to look 

kindly ; to shine by fits 
Blinker, a term of contempt 
Blinkin, smirking 

Blue-gown, one of those beggars who get an- 
nually, on the king's birth-tlay, a blue cloak 

or gown, with a badge 
Bluid, blood 

Bluntie, a sniveller, a stupid person 
Blype, a shred, a large piece 
Bock, to vomit, to gush intermittently 
Bocked, gushed, vomited 
Bodle, a small gold coin 
Bogles, spirits, hobgoblins 
Bonnie or bonny, handsome, beautiful 
Bonnock, a kind of thick cake of bread, a 

small jannock, or loaf made of oat meal 
Boord, a board 
Boortree, the shrub elder ; planted much of 

old in hedges of barn-yards, &c. 
Boost, behaved, must needs 
Bore, a hole in the wall 
Botch, an angry tumour 
Bousing, drinking 
Bow -kail, cabbage 
Bowt, bended, crooked 
Brackens, fern 
Brae, a declivity ; a precipiece ; the slope of a 

hill 
Braid, broad 
Bramdg't, reeled forward 
Braik, a kind of harrow 
Braindge, to run rashly forward 
Brak, broke, made insolvent 
Branks, a kind of wooden curb for horses 
Brash, a sudden illness 
Brats, coarse clothes, rags, &c. 
Brattle, a short race ; hurry ; fury 
Braw, fine, handsome 

Brawly, or braw-lie, very well ! finely ; heartily 
Braxie, a morbid sheep 
Breastie, diminutive of breast 
Breastit, did spring up or forward 
Breckan, fern 

(2) 



Breef, an invulnerable or irresistible spell 

Breeks, breeches 

Brent, smooth 

Brewin', brewing 

Brie, juice, liquid 

Brig, a bridge 

Brunstane, brimstone 

Brisket, the breast, the bosom 

Brither, a brother 

Brock, a badger 

Brogue, a hum ; a trick 

Broo, broth ; a trick 

Broose, broth ; a race at country weddings, 

who shall first reach the bridegrooms's house 

on returning from church 
Browster-wives, ale-house wives 
Brugh, a burgh 
Bruilzie, a broil, a combustion 
Brunt, did burn, burnt 
Brust, to burst ; burst 
Buchan-bullers, the boiling of the sea among 

the rocks of Buchan 
Buckskin, an inhabitant of Virginia 
Bught, a pen 
Bughtin-time, the time of collecting the sheep 

in the pens to be milked 
Buirdly, stout made ; broad made 
Bum-clock, a hummuig beetle that flies in the 

summer evenings 
Bumming, humming as bees 
Bummle, to blunder 
Bummler, a blunderer 
Bunker, a window-seat 
Burdies, diminutive of birds 
Bure, did bear 
Burn, water, a rivulet 
Buinewin, i. e. burn the wind, a blacksmith 
Burnie, diminutive of burn 
Biiskie, bushy 
Buskit, dressed 
Busks, dresses 
Bussle, a bustle ; to bustle 
Buss, shelter 
But, bot, with ; without 
But an' ben, the country kitchen and parlour 
By himsel, lunatic, distracted 
Byke, a bee-hive 
Byre, a cow-stable ; a sheep-pen 



CA', to call, to name ; to drive 

Ca't, or ca'd, called, driven ; calved 

Cadger, a carrier 

Cadie, or Caddie, a person ; a young feUow 

Caff; chaflT 

Caird, a tinker 

Cairn, a loose heap of stones 

Calf-ward, a small enclosure for calves 

Callan, a boy 

Caller, fresh ; sound ; refreshing 

Canie, or cannie, gentle, mild ; dexterous 

Cannilie, dexterously; gently 

Cantie, or canty, cheerful, merry 

Cantrip, a charm, a spell 

Cape-stane, cope-stone ; key-stone. 

Careerin, cheerfully 

Carl, an old man 

iCarlin, a stout old woman 

Cartes, cards 

Caudron, a cauldron 

Cauk an' keel, chalk and red clay 



GLOSSARY. 



Cauld, cold 

Caup, a wooden drinking vessel. 

Cessses, taxes 

Chanter, a part of a bagpipe 

Chap, a person, a fellow ; a blow 

Chaup, a stroke, a blow 

Chcekit, cheeked 

Cheep, a chirp ; to chirp 

Chiel, or cheel, a young fellow 

(Jhinila, or chimlie, a fire-grate, a fire-place 

Chimla-lug, the fireside 

Chittering, shivering, trembling 

Chockin', choking 

Chow, to chew ; Cheek for chow, side by side 

Chuffie, fat-faced 

Clachan, a small village about a church ; a 

hamlet 
Claise, or claes, clothes 
Claith, cloth 
Claithing, clothing 

Claivers, nonsense ; not speaking sense 
Clap, clapper of a mill 
Clarkit, wrote 

Clash, an idle tale, the story of the day 
Clatter, to tell idle stories ; an idle story 
Claught, snatched at, laid hold of 
Claut, to clean ; to scrape 
Clauted, scraped 
Clavers, idle stories. 
Claw, to scratch 
Cleed, to clothe 
Cleeds, clothes 
Cleekit, having caught 
Clinkin, jerking ; clinking 
Clinkumbell, he who rings the church-bell 
Clips, shears 

Clishmaclaver, idle conversation 
Clock, to hatch ; a beetle 
Clockin, hatching 

Cloot, the hoof of a cow, sheep, &c. 
Clootie, an old name for the Devil. 
Clour, a bump or swelling after a blow 
Cluds, clouds 
Coaxin, wheedling 
Coble, a fishing boat 
Cockernony, a lock of hair tied upon a girl's 

head ; a cap 
Coft, bought 
Cog, a wooden dish 
Coggie, diminutive of cog 
Coila, from Kyle, a district of Ayrshire ; so 

called, saith tradition, from Coil, or Coilus, 

a Pictish monarch 
Collie, a general and sometimes a particular 

name for country curs 
Collieshangie, quarrelling, an uproar 
Commaun, command 
Cood, the cud 

Coof, a blockhead ; a ninny 
Cookit, appeared and disappeared by fits 
Coost, did cast 
<.'oot, the ankle or foot 
Cootie, a wooden kitchen dish: — also, those 

fowls whose legs are clad with feathers are 

said to be cootie 
Corbies, » species of the crow 
< 'ore, corps ; party ; clan 
(^orn't, fed with oats 

Cotter, the inhabitant of a cot -house, or cot- 
tager 
Couthie, kind, loving 

(3) 



('ove, a cave 

Cowe, to terrify ; to keep under, to lop; fright ; 
a branch of furze, broom, &c. 

Cowp, to barter ; to tumble over ; a gang 

Cowpit, tumbled 

Cowrin', cowering 

Cowt, a colt 

Cozie, snug 

Cozily, snugly 

C!rabbit, crabbed, fretful 

Crack, conversation ; to converse 

('rackin', conversing 

Craft, or croft, a field near a house (in old 
husbandry) 

Craiks, cries or calls incessantly ; a bird 

Crambo-dink, or crambo-jingle, rhymes, dog- 
grel verses 

Crank, the noise of an ungreased wheel 

Oankous, fretful, captious 

Cranreuch, the hoar frost 

(.'rap, a crop ; to crop 

( "raw, a crow of a cock ; a rook 

('reel, a basket ; to have one's wits in a creel, 
to be crazed ; to be fascinated 

Cree])ie-stool, the same as cutty-stool 

Crcesliie, greasy 

Crood, or croud, to coo as a dove 

Croon, a hollow and continued moan ; to make 
a noise like the continued roar of a bull ; to 
hum a tune 

Crooning, humming 

Oouchie, crook-backed 

Croose, cheerful ; courageous 

Crousely, cheerfully ; courageously 

Crowdie, a composition of oat-meal and boil- 
ed water, sometimes from the broth of beef, 
mutton, &c. 

Crowdie-time, breakfast time 

Crowlin', crawling 

(.'rummock, a cow with crooked horns 

Crump, hard and brittle ; spoken of bread 

Crunt, a blow on the head with a cudgel 

Cuif, a blockhead, a ninny 

Cummock, a short staff with a crooked head 

Curchie, a courtesy 

Curler, a player at a game on the ice, practis- 
ed in Scotland, called curlinj? 

Curlie, curled, whose hair falls naturally in 
ringlets 

Curling, a well known game on the ice 

Curmurring, murmuring ; a slight rumbling 
noise 

Cunnn, the crupper 

Cusliat, the dove, or wood- pigeon 

( utty, short ; a spoon broken in the middle 

( utty-stool, tlie stool of repentance 

D 

DADDIE, a father 

Daffin, merriment ; foolishness 

Daft, merry, giddy ; foolish 

Daimen, rare, now and then ; jdaimen-icker, 

an ear of corn now and then. 
Dainty, pleasant, good humoured, agreeable 
Daise, daez, to stupify 
Dules, plains, valleys 
Darklins, darkling 
Daud, to thrash, to abuse 
Daur, to dare 
Daurt, dared 



GLOSSARY. 



Daurg, or daurk, a day's labour 

Davoc, David 

Dawd, a large piece 

Dawtit, or d'awtet, fondled, caressed 

Dearies, diminutive of dears 

'Dearthfu', dear 

Deave, to deafen 

Deil-ina-care ! no matter ! for all that ! 

Deleerit, delirious 

Descrive, to describe 

Dight, to wipe ; to clean com from chaff 

Dight, cleaned from chaff 

Ding, to worst, to push 

Dink, neat, tidy, trim 

Dinna, do not 

Dirl, a slight tremulous stroke or pain 

Dizen, or dizz'n, a dozen 

Doited, stupified, hebetated 

Dolt, stupified, crazed 

Donsie, unlucky 

Dool, sorrow ; to sing dool, to lament, to 

mourn 
Doos, doves 
Dorty, saucy, nice 

Douce, or douse, sober, ^v^se, prudent 
Doucely, soberly, prudently 
Dought, was or were able 
Doup, backside 

Doup-skelper, one that strikes the tail 
Dour and din, sullen and sliallow 
Doure, stout, durable ; sullen, stubborn 
Dow, am or are able, can 
Dowff, pithless, wanting force 
Dowie, worn with grief, fatigue, &c. half a- 

sleep 
Downa, am or are not able, cannot 
Doylt, stupid 

Do'zent, stupified, impotent 
Drap, a drop ; to drop 
Draigle, to soil by trailing, to draggle among 

wet, &c. 
Drapping, dropping. 

Draunting, drawling ; of a slow enunciation 
Dreep, to ooze, to drop 
Dreigh, tedious, long about it 
Dribble, drizzling ; slaver 
Drift, a drove 
Droddum, the breech 
Drone, part of a bagj-yipe 
Droon-rumprt, that droops at the crupper 
DrouKit, wet 
Drounting, draAvling 
Drouth, thirst, drought 
Drucken, drunken 
Drumly, muddy 
Drummock, meal and water mixed in a raw 

state 
Xirunt, pet, sour humour 
Dub, a small pond 
Duds, rags, clothes 
Duddie, ragged 
Dung, worsted ; pushed, driven 
Dunted, beaten, boxed 
Dush, to push as a ram, &c 
Dusht, pushed by a ram, ox, &c. 



E'E, the eye 
E'en, the eyes 
E'ening, evening 



E 



(4) 



Jvirie, frighted, dreading spirits 

Eild. old age 

Elhuck, the elbow 

Eldritcli, ghastly, frightful 

Eller, an elder, or church officer 

En', end 

Enbrugh, Edinburgh. 

Eneugh, enough 

Especial, especially 

Ettle, to try, to attempt 

Eydent, diligent 



FA', fall ; lot ; to fall 

Fa's does fall ; water-falls 

Faddom't, fathomed 

Fae, a foe 

Feam, foam 

Faiket, unknown 

Fairin', a fairing ; a present 

Fallow, fellow 

Fand, did find 

Farl, a cake of oaten bread, &c. 

Fash, trouble, care ; to trouble, to care for 

Fasht, troubled 

Fasteren-e'en, Fasten's Even 

Fauld, a fold ; to fold 

Faulding, folding 

Faut, fault 

Faute, want, lack 

Fawsont, decent, seemly 

Feal, a field ; smooth 

Fearfu', frightful 

Feart, frighted 

Feat, neat, spruce 

Fecht, to fight 

Fechtin', fighting 

Feck, many, plenty 

Fecket, an under waistcoat with sleeves 

J'eckfu', large, brawn}'^, stout 

Feckless, puny, weak, silly 

Feckly, weakly 

Feg, a fig 

Feide, feud, enmity 

Feirrie, stout, vigorous, healthy 

Fell, keen, biting; the flesh immediately un- 
der the skin ; a field pretty level, on the side 
or top of a hill 

Fen, successful struggle; fight 

Fend, to live comfortably 

Ferlie, or ferley, to wonder ; a wonder ; a term 
of contempt 

Fetch, to pull by fits 

Fetch't, pulled intermittently 

Fidge, to fidget 

Fiel, soft, smooth 

Fient, fiend, a petty oath 

Fier, sound, healtliy ; a brotlier : a friend 

Fissle, to make a rustling noise ; to fidget ; a 
bustle 

Fit, a foot 

Fittie-lan', the nearer horse of the hindmost 
pair in the plough 

Fizz, to make a hissing noise, like fermenta- 
tion 

Flainen, flannel 

Flcech. to supplicate in a flattering manner 

Fleech'd, supplicated 

Fleecliin', supplicating 

Fleesh, a fleece 



GLOSSARY. 



Fleg, a kick, a random stroke 

Flether, to decoy l>y fair words 

Fletherin', flattering 

Fley, to scare, to frighten 

Flitcher, to flutter, as young nestlings when 

their dam approaches 
Flinders, shreds, broken pieces, splinters 
Flingin'-tree, a piece of timber hung by way 

of partition between two horses in a stable ; 

a flail 
FUsk, to fret at the yoke 
FUsket, fretted 
Flitter, to vibrate like the wings of small 

birds 
Flittering, fluttering, vibrating 
Flunkie, a servant in livery 
Fodgcl, squat and plump 
Foord, a ford 
Forbears, forefathers 
Forbye, besides 

Forfairn, distressed; worn out, jaded 
Forfoughten, fatigued 
Forgattier, to meet, to encounter with > 
For^e, to forgive 
Forjesket, jaded witli fatigue 
Fother, fodder 
Fou, full ; drunk 
Foughten, troubled, harassed 
Fouth, plenty, enough, or more than enough 
Fow, a bushel. Sic- ; also a pitch-fork 
Frae, from ; off 
Frammit, strange, estranged from, at enmity 

with 
Freath, froth 
Frien', friend 
Fu', full 

Fud, the scut, or tail of the hare, cony, &c. 
Fuff*, to blow intermittently 
FufF't, did blow 
Funnie, full of merriment 
Fur, a furrow 
Furm, a form, bench 
Fyke, trifling cares ; to piddle, to be in a fuss 

about trifles 
Fyle, to soil, to dirty 
Fyl't, soiled, dirtied 



GAB, the mouth ; to speak boldly, or pertly 

Gaberlunzie, an old man 

Gadsman, aploughboy, the boy that djrives the 

horses in the plough 
Gae, to go ; gaed, went ; gaen, or gane, gone 

gaun, going 
Gaet, or gate, way, manner; road 
Gairs, triangular pieces of cloth sewed on the 

bottom of a gown, &,c. 
Gang, to go, to walk 
Gar, to make, to force to 
Gar't, forced to 
Garten, a ga^rter 

Gash, wise, sagacious ; talkative ; to converse 
Gashin', conversing 
Gaucy, jolly, large 
Gaud, a plough 

Gear, riches ; goods of any kind 
Geek, to toss the head in wantonness ot scorn 
Ged, a pike 

Gentles, great folks, gentry 
Genty, elegantly formed, neat 
Geordie, a guinea 



Get, a child, a young one 

Ghaist, a ghost ' 

Gie, to give ; gied, gave ; gien, given 

Giftie, diminutive of gift 

Giglets, pbyful girls 

Gillie, diniinutrve of gill 

Gilpey, a half grown, half informed boy or 

girl, a romping lad, a hoiden 
Gimmer, a ewe from one to two years old 
Gin, if; against 
Gipsey, a young girl 

Girn, to grin, to twist the features in rage, 
agony, &c. 

Girning, grinning 

Gizz, a periwig 

Glaiket, inattentive, foolish 

Glaive, a sword 

Gawky, half-witted, foolish, romping 

Glaizie, glittering ; smooth like glass 

Glaum, to snatch greedily 

Glaum'd, aimed, snatched 

Gleck, sharp, ready 

Gleg, sharp, ready 

Gleib, glebe 

Glen, a dale, a deep valley 

Gley, a squint ; to squint; a-gley, ofFat a side, 
wrong 

Glib-gabbet, smooth and ready in speech 

Glint, to peep 

Glinted, peeped 

Glintin', peeping 

Gloamin', the twilight 

Glowr, to stare, to look ; a stare, a look 

Glowred, looked, stared 

Glunsh, a frown, a sour look 

Goavan, looking round with a strange, inquir- 
ing gaze ; staring stupidly 

Gowan, the flower of the wild daisy, hawk- 
weed, &c. 

Gowany, daisied, abounding with daisies 

Gowd, gold 

Gowff', the game of golf; to strike as the bat 
does the ball at golf 

Gowff'd, struck"" 

Gowk, a cuckoo ; a term of contemp* 

Gowl, to howl 

Grane, or grain, a groan ; to gro?n 

Grain'd and grunted, groaned P<id grunted 

Graining, groaning 

Graip, a pronged instrumc-it used for cleaning 
stables 

Graith, accoutrements, furniture, dress, gear 

Grannie, grandmotlKJr 

Grape, to grope 

(Trapit, groped 

Grat, wept, shed tears _ 

Great, intimate, fa-'fliliar 

Gree, to agree ; to bear the gree, to be decid- 
edly victor 

Gree't, agreed 

Gr<^t, to shed tears, to weep 

r.'reetin', crying, weeping 

Grippet, catched, seized 

Groat, to get the whistle of one's groat, to play 
a losing game 

Grousome, loathsomely grim 

(Jrozet, a gooseberry 

Grumph, a grunt ; to grunt 

Grumphie, a sow 

Grun', ground 

Grunstane, a grindstone ' 

Gruntle, the pliiz ; a grunting noise 



(5) 



GLOSSARY. 



Grunzie, mouth 

Grushie, tluck ; of thriving growth 

Gude, the Supreme Being ; good 

Guid, good 

Guid-mornin', good morrow 

Guid-e'en, good evening 

Guidman and guidwife, the master and mis- 
tress of the house ; young guidman, a man 
newly married 

Guid-willie, Hberal ; cordial 

Guidfather, guidmother, father-iii-law, and 
mother-in-law 

Gully, or gullie, a large knife 

Gumlie, muddy 

Gusty, tasteful 

H 

BA', hall 

Ha'-Bible, the great bible that lies in the 

haU 
Hae, to have 
Haen, had, the participle 
Haet, fint haet, a petty oath of negation ; no- 
thing 
HafFet, the temple, the side of the head 
Hafflins, nearly half, partly 
Hag, a scar, or gulf in mosses, and moors 
Haggis, a kind of pudding boiled in the sto- 
mach of a cow or sheep 
Hain, to spare, to save 
Hain'd, spared 
Hairst, harvest 
Haith, a petty oath 

Haivers, nonsense, speaking without thought 
Hal', or hald, an abiding place 
Hale, whole, tight, healthy 
Haly, holy 
Hame, home 

Hallun, a particular partition-wall in a cot- 
tage, or more properly a seat of turf at the 
outside 
Hallowmas, Hallow-eve, the 31st of October 
Hamtly, homely, affable 
Han', or haun', hand 

Hap, an outer garment, mantle, plaid, &c. to 
wrap, to -over ; to hop 

Happer, a hoijper 

Happin', hopp'jig 

Hap step an' loup hop skip and leap 

Harkit, hearkened 

Ham, very coarse linen 

Hash, a fellow that neither knows bow to dress 
nor act with propriety 

Hastit, hastened 

Haud, to hold 

Haughs, low lying, rich lands ; valleys 

Haurl, to drag ; to peel 

Haurlin, peehng 

Haverel, a half witted person ; half wit\p.d 

Havins, good manners, decorum, good sei^e 

Hawkie, a cow, properly one with a white fauj 

Heapit, heaped 

Healsome, healthful, wholesome 

Hearse, hoarse 

Hear't, hear it 

Heather, heath 

Hech ! oh ! strange ! 

Hecht, promised ; to foretell something that is 
to be got or given ; foretold ; the thing fore- 
told ; offered 

Heckle, a board, in which are fixed a number 

(6) 



of sharp pms, used in dressing hemp,flax, 
&c. 

Heeze, to elevate, to raise 

Helm, the rudder or helm 

Herd, to tend flocks ; one who tends flocks 

Herrin, a herring 

Herry, to plunder ; most properly to plunder 
birds' nests 

Herryment, plundering, devastation 

Hersel, herself ; also a herd of cattle, of any 
sort 

Het, hot 

Heugh, a crag, a coalpit 

Hilcn, a hobble ; to halt 

Hilchtn, halting 

Himsel, himself 

Hiney, honey 

Hing, to hang 

Hirple, to walk crazily, to creep 

Hirsel, so many cattle as one person can attend 

Hastie, dry ; chapped ; barren 

Hitch, a loop, a knot 

Hizzie, a hussy, a young girl 

Hoddin, the motion of a sage countryman rid- 
ing on a cart-horse ; humble 

Hog-score, a kind of distance-line, in curling, 
drawn across the rink 

Hog-shouther, a kind of horse- play, by just- 
ling with the shoulder ; to justle 

Hool, outer skin or case, a nut-shell ; a peas- 
cod 

Hoolie, slowly, leisurely 

Hoolie ! take leisure, stop 

Hoord, a hoard ; to hoard 

Hoordit, hoarded 

Horn, a spoon made of horn 

Homie, one of the many names of the devil 

Host, or hoast, to cough ; a cough 

Ilostin', coughing 

Hosts, coughs 

Hotch'd, turn'd topsyturvy ; blended, mixed 

Houghmagandie, fornication 

Houlet, an owl 

Housie, diminutive of house 

Hove, to heave, to swell 

Hoved, heaved, swelled 

Howdie, a midwife 

Howe, hollow ; a hollow or dell 

Howebackit, sunk in the back, spoken of a 
horse, &c. 

Howff, a tippling house ; a house of resort 

Howk, to dig 

Howkit, digged 

Howkin, digging 

Howlet, an owl 

Hoy, to urge 

Hoy't, urged 

Hoyse, to pull upwards 

Hoyte, to amble crazily 

Hughoc, diminutive ot Hugh 

Hurcheon, a hedgehog 

Hurdies, the loins ; the crupper 

Hiishion, a cusliion 



I 

I', in 

Icker, an ear of com 

ler-oe, a great-grandcliild 

Ilk, or ilka, each, every 

Ill-wiUie, ill-natured, malicious, niggardly 

Ingine, genius, ingenuity 



GLOSSARY. 



Ingle, fire ; fire-place 
Ise, I shall or will 
Ither, other ; one another 



J AD, jade ; also a familiar term among coun- 
try folks for a giddy young girl 

Jauk, to dally, to trifle 

Jaukin', trifling, dallying 

Jaup, a jerk of water ; to jerk as agitated wa- 
ter. 

Jaw, coarse raillery ; to pour out ; to shut, to 
jerk as water 

Jerkinet, a jerkin, or short grown 

Jillet, a jilt, a giddy girl 

Jimp, to jump ; slender in the waist ; hand- 
some 

Jimps, easy stays 

Jink, to dodge, to turn a corner ; a sudden 
turning ; a corner 

Jinker, that turns quickly ; a gay sprightly 
girl ; a wag 

Jinkin', dodging 

Jirk, a jerk 

Jocteleg, a kind of knife 

Jouk, to stoop, to bow the head 

Jow, to jow, a verb which includes both the 
swinging motion and peahng sound of a 
large bell 

Jundie, to justle 

K 

KAE, a daw 

Kail, cnlewort ; a kind of broth 

Kail-runt, the stem of colewort 

Kain, fowls, &c. paid as rent by a farmer 

Kebbuck, a cheese 

Keckle, to giggle ; to titter 

Keek, a peep, to peep 

Kelpies, a sort of mischievous spirits, said to 
liaunt fords and ferries at night, especially 
in storms 

Ken, to know ; kend or kenn'd, knew 

Kennin, a small matter 

Kenspeckle, well known, easily known 

Ket, matted, hairy ; a fleece of wool 

Kilt; to truss up the clothes 

Kimmer, a young girl, a gossip 

Kin, kindred ; kin', kind, adj. 

King's-hood, a certain part of the entrails of 
an ox, &c. 

Kintra, country 

Kintra cooser, country stallion 

Kirn, the harvest supper ; a churn 

Kirsen, to christen, or baptize 

Kist, a chest ; a shop counter 

Kitchen, any thing that eats with bread ; to 
serve for soup, gravy, &c. 

Kith, kindred 

Kittle, to tickle ; ticklish ; lively, apt 

Kittlin, a young cat 

Kiuttle, to cuddle 

Kiuttlin, cuddling 

Knaggie, like knags, or points of rocks 

Knap, to strike smartly, a smart blow 

Knappin-hamraer, a hammer used for break- 
ing stones 

Knowe, a small round hillock 

Knurl, a dwarf 

Kye, cows 



m 



Kyle, a district in Ayrshire 

Kyte, the belly 

Kythe, to discover ; to show one's self 

L 

LADDIE, diminutive of lad 

Laggen, the angle between the side and bot- 
tom of a wooden dish 

Laigh, low 

Lairing, wading, and sinking in snow, mud, 
&c. 

Laith, loath 

Laithfu', bashful, sheepish 

Lallans, the Scottish dialect of the English 
language 

Lambie, diminutive of lamb 

Lampit, a kind of shell-fish, a limpit 

Lan', land ; estate 

Lane, lone ; my lane, thy lane, &c. myself 
alone, &c. 

Lanely, lonely 

liang, long ; to think lang, to long, to weary 

Lap, did leap 

Lave, the rest, the remainder, the others 

Laverock, the lark 

Lawin, shot, reckoning, biU 

Lawlan', lowland 

Lea'e, to leave 

Leal, loyal, true, faithful 

Lea-rig, grassy ridge 

Lear, (pronounced lare), learning 

Lee-lang, live-long 

Leesome, pleasant 

Leeze-me, a phrase of congratulatory endear- 
ment ; I am happy in thee, or proud, of 
thee 

Leister, a tliree-prongM dart for striking fish 

Leudi, did laugh 

Leuk, a look ; to look 

Libbet, gelded 

Lift, the sky 

Lightly, sneeringly ; to sneer at 

Lilt, a ballad ; a tune ; to sing 

Limmer, a kept mistress, a strumpet 

liimp't, limped, hobbled 

Link, to trip along 

Linkin', tripping 

lyinn, a waterfall ; a precipiece 

Lint, flax 

Lint i' the bell, flax in flower 

Lintwhite, a linnet 

lioan, or loanin', the place of milking 

Loof, the palm of the hand 

Loot, did let 

Looves, plural of loof 

Loun, a fellow, a ragamuffin ; a woman of 
easy virtue 

Loup, jump, leap 

Lowe, a flame 

Lowin', flaming 

Lowrie, abbreviation of Lawrence 

Lowse, to loose 

Lows'd, loosed 

Lug, the ear ; a handle 

Lugget, having a handle 

Luggie, a small wooden dish with a handle 

Lum, the chimney 

Lunch, a large piece of cheese, flesh, &c. 

Lunt, a column of smoke ; to smoke 

Luntin', smoking 

Lyart, of a mixed colour, gray 



75 



GLOSSARY. 



M 

MAE, more 

Mair, more 

Mai St, most, almost 

Maistly, mostly 

Mak, to make 

Makin', making 

Mailen, a farm 

Mallie, Molly 

Mang, among 

Manse, the parsonage house, where the minis- 
ter lives 

Manteele, a mantle 

31ark, marks. (This and several other nouns 
which in English require an s to form the 
plural, are in Scotch, like the words sheep, 
deer, the same in both numbers.) 

Marled, variegated ; spotted 

Mar's year, the year 1715 

Mashlum, meslin, mixed corn 

Mask, to mash, as malt, &c- 

Maskin-pat, a tea-pot 

Maud, maad, a plaid worn by shepherds, &c. 

Maukin, a hare 

Maun, must 

Mavis, the thrush 

Maw, to mow 

Mawin', mowing 

Meere, a mare 

Meikle, meickle, much 

Melancholious, mournful 

Melder, corn, or grain of any kind, sent to 
the mill to be ground 

Moll, to meddle. Also a mallet for pounding 
barley in a stone trougli 

Mel vie, to soil with meal 

Men', to mend 

Mense, good manners, decorum 

Menseless, ill-bred, rude, impudent 

Messin, a small do^ 

Midden, a dunghill 

Midden-hole, a gutter at the bottom of a dung- 
hill 

Mim, prim, affectedly meek 

iMin', mind ; resemblance 

31ind't, mind it; resolved, intending 

Minnie, mother, dam 

31 irk, miikest, dark, darkest 

Misca', to abuse, to call names 

Misca'd, abused 

3Iislear'd, mischievous, unmannerly 

3Iisteuk, mistook 

Mither, a mother 

Mixtie-maxtie, confusedly mixed 

Moistify, to moisten 

Mony, or monie, many 

Mools, dust, earth, the earth of the grave ; to 
rake i' the mools ; to lay in the dust 

Moop, to nibble as a sheep 

Moorlan', of or belonging to moors 

Morn, the next day, to-morrow 

Mou, the mouth 

3Joudiwort, a mole 

Mousie, diminutive of mouse 

Muckle, or mickle, great, big, much 

Musie, diminutive of muse 

Muslin-kail, broth, composed simply of water, 
shelled barley, and greens 

iMutchkin, an English pint 

JSIysel, myself 

(8) 



N 

NA, no, not, nor 

Nae, no, not any 

Naething, or naithing, nothing 

Naig, a horse 

Nane, none 

Nappy, ale ; to be tipsy 

Negleckit, neglected 

Neuk, a nook 

Niest, next 

Nieve, the fist 

Nievefu', handful 

Niffer, an exchange ; to exchange, to barter 

Niger, a negro 

Nine-tail'd-cat, a hangman's whip 

Nit, a nut 

Norland, of or belonging to the north 

Notic't, noticed 

Nowte, black cattle 



O 



O', of 

Ochils, name of a range of mountains in Clack- 

mannon and Kinross-shires 
() haith, O faith ! an oatn 
Ony, or onie, any 
Or, is often used for ere, before 
Ora, or orra, supernumerary, that can be 

spared 
O't, of it 

Ourie, shivering ; drooping 
Ourael', or oursels, ourselves 
Ou tiers, cattle not housed 
( )wre, over ; too 
Owre-hip, a way of fetching a blow with the 

hammer over the arm 



PACK, intimate, familiar ; twelve stone of 
wool 

Painch, paunch 

Paitrick, a partridge 

Pang, to cram 

Parle, speech 

Parritch, au oatmeal pudding, a well-known 
Scotch dish 

Pat, did put ; a pot 

Pattle, or pettle, a plough-staff 

Paughty, proud, haughty 

Pauky, or pawkie, cunning, sly 

Pay't, paid ; beat 

Pech, to fetch the breath short, as in an asth- 
ma 

Pechan, the crop, the stomach 

PeeUn', peeling, the rind of fruit 

Pet, a domesticated sheep, &c. 

Pettle, to cherish ; a plough-stafF 

Philabegs, short petticoats worn by the High- 
landmen 

Phraise, fair speehes, flattery ; to flatter 

Phraisin', flattery 

Pibroch, Highland war music adapted to the 
bagpipe 

Pickle, a small quantity 

Pine, pain, uneasiness 

Pit, to put 

Placard, public proclamation 



GLOSSARY. 



Plack, an old Scotch coin, the third part of a 
Scotch penny, twelve of which make an 
EngUsh penny 

Plackless, pennyless, without money 

Platie, diminutive of plate 

Plew, or pleugh, a plough 

Pliskie, a trick 

Poind, to seize cattle or goods for rent, as the 
laws of Scotland allow 

Poortith, poverty 

Pou, to pull 

Pouk, to pluck 

Poussie, a hare, or cat 

Pout, a poult, a chick 

Pou't, did pull 

Powth,ery, like powder 

Pow, the head, the skull 

Pownie, a little horse 

Powther, or pouther, powder 

Preen, a pin 

Prent, to print ; print 

Prie, to taste 

Prie'd, tasted 

Prief, proof 

Prig, to cheapen ; to dispute 

Priggin, cheapening 

Primsie, demure, precise 

Propone, to lay down, to propose 

Provoses, provosts 

Puddock-stool, a nuislieroom, fungus 

Pund, pound ; pounds 

Pyle, — a pyle o' cafF, a single grain of chaff 



QUAT, to quit 
Quak, to quake 
Quey, a cow from one to two years old 



RAGWEED, the herb ragwort 

Raible, to rattle nonsense 

Rair, to roar 

Raize, to madden, to inflame 

Ram-feezl'd, fatigued ; overspread 

Ram-stam, thoughtless, forward 

Raploch, properly a coarse cloth ; but used as 

an adnoun for coarse 
Rarely, excellently, very well 
Rash, a rush ; rash-buss, a bush of rushes 
Ration, a rat 

Raucle, rash { stout ; fearless 
Raught, reached 
Raw, a row 
Rax, to stretch 
Ream, cream ; to cream 
Reaming, brimful, frothing 
Reave, rove 
Reck, to heed 
Rede, counsel ; to counsel 
Rod-wat-shod, walking in blood over the shoe. 

tops 
Red-wud, stark mad 
Ree, half drunk, fuddled 
Reek, smoke 
Reekin', smoking 
Reekit, smoked ; smoky 
Remead, remedy 
Requite, requited 
Rest, to stand restive 
Restit. stood restive ; stunted ; withered 



(9) 



Rcstricked, restricted 

Rew^ to repent, to compassionate 

Rief, reef, plenty 

Rief randies, sturdy beggars 

Rig, a ridge 

liigwiddie, rigwoodie, the rope or chain that 
crosses the saddle of a horse to support the 
spokes of a cart ; spare, withered, sapless 

Rin, to run, to melt 

Rinnin', running 

Rink, the course of the stones ; a term in curl- 
ing on ice 

Rip, a handful of un thrashed corn 

Riskit, made a noise like the tearing of roots 

Rockin', spinning on the rock, or distaff 

Rood, stands likewise for the plural roods 

Roon, a shred, a border or selvage 

Roose, to praise, to commend 

Roosty, rusty 

Roun', round, in the circle of neighbourhood 

Roupet, hoarse, as with a cold 

Routhie, plentiful 

Row, to roll, to wrap 

Row't, rolled, wrapped 

Rowte, to low, to bellow 

Routh, or routh, plenty 

Rowtin', lowing 

Kozet, rosin 

Rung, a cudgel 

Runkled, wrinkled 

Runt, the stem of colewort or cabbage 

Ruth, a woman's name; the book so called ; 
sorrow 

Ryke, to reach 



SAE, so 

Saf't, soft 

Sair, to serve ; a sore 

Sairly, or sairlie, sorely 

Sair't, served 

Sark, a shirt ; a shift 

Sarkit, provided in shirts 

Saugh, the willow 

Saul, soul 

Saumont, salmon 

Savmt, a saint 

Saut, salt, adj. salt 

Saw, to sow 

Sawin', sowing 

Sax, six 

Scaith, to damage, to injure ; injury 

Scar, a cliff 

Scaud, to scald 

Scauld, to scold 

Scaur, ajit to be scared 

Scawl, a scold ; a termagant 

Scon, a cake of bread 

Sconner, a loathing ; to loathe 

Scraich, to scream as a hen, partridge, &c. 

Screed, to tear ; a rent 

Scrieve, to glide swiftly along 

Scrievin, gleesoniely ; swiftly 

Scrimp, to scant 

Scrimpet, did scant ; scanty 

See'd, did see 

Seizin', seizing 

Sel, self; a body's sel, one's self alone 

Seirt, did sell 

Sen', to send 

Sent", I, &c. sent, or did send it ; send it 



GLOSSARY 



Servan', servant 

Settlin', settling ; to get a settlin', to be fright- 
ed into quietness 
Sets, sets off, goes a.way 
Shachled, distorted ; shapeless 
Shaird, a shied, a shard 
Shangan, a stick cleft at one end for putting 
the tail of a dog, &c. into, by way of mis- 
chief, or to frighten him away 
Shaver, a humorous wag ; a barber 
Shaw, to show ; a small wood in a hollow 
Sheen, bright, shining 

Sheep-shank ; to think one's self nae sheep- 
^ shank, to be conceited 
Sherra.moor, sheriff-moor, the famous battle 

fought in the rebellion, A.D. 1715 
Sheugh, a ditch, a trench, a sluice 
Shiel, a ditch, a trench, a sluice 
Shi el, a shed 
ShiU, shrill 

Shog, a shock ; a push off at one side 
Shool, a shovel 
Shoon, shoes 

Shore, to offer, to threaten 
8hor'd, offered 
8houther, the shoulder 
Shure, did shear, shore 
8ic, such 

Sicker, sure, steady 
Sidelins, sidelong, slanting 
Siller, silver ; money 
Simmer, summer 
Sin, a son 
Sin', since 
Skaith, see scaith 
Skellum, a worthless fellow 
Skelp, to strike, to slap ; to walk witn a smart 

tripping step ; a smart stroke 
Skelpie-limmer, a reproachful term in female 

scolding 
Skelpin', stepping, walking 
Skiegh, or skeigh, proud, nice, highmettled 
Skinklin, a small portion 
Skirl, to shriek, to cry shrilly 
Skirling, shrieking, crying 
Skirl't, shrieked 
Sklent, slant ; to run aslant, to deviate from 

trutli 
Sklented, ran, or hit, in an oblique direction 
Skouth, freedom to converse without restraint ; 

range, scope 
Skriegh, a scream ; to scream 
Skyrin', shining ; making a groat show 
Skyte, force, very forcible motion 
Slae, a sloe 
Slade, did slide 

Slap, a gate ; a breach in a fence 
Slaver, saliva ; to emit saliva 
Slaw, slow 

iSlee, sly ; sleest, sliest 
Sleekit, sleek ; sly 
Sliddry, slippery 
Slype, to fall over, as a wet furrow from the 

plough 
Slypet, fell 
Sma', small 

Smeddum, dust, powder ; mettle, sense 
Smiddy, a smithy 
Smoor, to smother 
Smoor'd, smothered 
Smoutie, smutty, obscene, ugly 
Smytrie, a numerous collection of small indi- 
viduals 

(10) 



Snapper, to stumble, a stumble 

Snash, abuse, Billingsgate 

Snaw, snow ; to snow 

Snaw-broo, melted snow 

Snawie, snowy 

Sneck, snick, the latch of a door 

Sned, to lop, to cut off 

Sneeshin, snuff 

Sneeshin-mill, a snuff-box 

Snell, bitter, biting 

Snick-drawing, trick-contriving, crafty 

Snirtle, to laugh restrainedly 

Snood, a ribbon for binding the hair 

Snool, one whose spirit is broken with oppres- 
sive slavery ; to submit tamely, to snealc 

Snoove, to go smoothly and constantly ; to 
sneak 

Snowk, to scent or snuff, as a dog, &c. 

Snowkit, scented, snuffed 

Sonsie, having sweet, engaging looks ; lucky 
jolly 

Soom, to swim 

Sooth, truth, a petty oath 

Sough, a heavy sigh, a sound dying on the 

ear 
Souple, flexible ; swift 
Souter, a shoemaker 
Sowens, a dish made of oatmeal ; the seeds o- 

oatmeal soured, &c. flummery 
S«wp, a spoonful, a small quantity of an ' 

thing liquid 
Sowth, to try over a tune with a low whistle 
Sowther, solder ; to solder, to cement 
Spae, to prophesy, to divine 
Spaul, a limb 

Spairgc, to dash, to soil, as with mire 
Spaviet, having the spavin 
Spean, spane, to wean 
Speat, or spate, a sweeping torrent, after raia 

or thaw 
Speei, to climb 
Spence, the country parlour 
Spier, to ask, to inquire 
Spier't, inquired 
Splatter, a splutter, to splutter 
Spleughan, a tobacco-pouch 
Splore, a frolic ; a noise, riot 
Sprackle, sprachle, to clamber 
Sprattle, to scramble 
Spreckled, spotted, speckled 
Spring, a quick air in music ; a Scottish reel 
Sprit, a tough-rooted plant, something like 

rushes 
Sprittie, full of spirits 
Spunk, fire, mettle ; wit 

Spunkie, mettlesome, fiery ; will-o'wisp, or ig- 
nis fatuus 
Spurtle, a stick, used in making oatmeal pud^ 

ding or porridge 
Squad, a crew, a party 
Squatter, to flutter in water as a wild duck 
Squattle, to sprawl 

Squeel, a scream, a screech ; to scream 
Stacher, to stagger 
Stack, a rick of corn, hay, &c. 
Staggie, the diminutive of stag 
Stalwart, strong, stout 
Stan', to stand ; stan't, did stand 
Stane, a stone 

Stang, an acute pain •, a twinge ; to sting 
Stank, did stink ; a pool of standing water 
Stap, stop 
Stark, stout 



GLOSSARY. 



Startle, to run as cattle stung by the gad-fly 

Staumrel, a blockhead ; half-witted 

Staw, did steal ; to surfeit 

Stech, to cram the belly 

Stechin, cramming 

Steek, to shut ; a stitch 

Steer, to molest ; to stir 

Steeve, firm, compacted 

Stell, still 

Sten, to rear as a horse 

Sten't reared 

Stents, tribute ; dues of any kind 

Stey, steep ; steyest, steepest 

Stibble, stubble ; stibble-rig, the reaper in 
harvest who takes the lead 

Stick an^ stow, totally, altogether 

Stile, a crutch ; to halt, to limp 

Stimpart, the eighth part of a Winchester 
bushel 

Stirk, a cow or bullock a year old 

Stock, a plant or root of colewort, cabbage, 
&c. 

Stockin, a stocking ; Throwing the stockin, 
when the bride and bridegroom are put into 
bed, and the candle out, the former throws 
a stocking at random among the company, 
and the person whom it strikes is the next 
that will be married 

Stoiter, to stagger, to stammer 

Stooked, made up in shocks as corn 

Stoor^ sounding hollow, strong, and hoarse 

Stot, an ox 

Stoup, or stowp, a kind of jug or dish with a 
handle 

Stour, dust, more particularly dust in mo- 
tion 

Stowlins, by stealth 

Stown, stolen 

Stoyte, to stumble 

Strack, did strike 

Strae, straw ; to die a fair strae heath, to die 
in bed 

^traik, did strike 

Straikit, stroked 

Sttappin', tall and handsome 

Straught, straight, to straighten 

'Streek, stretched, tight ; to stretch 

Striddle, to straddle 

Stroan, to spout, to piss 

Studdie, an 'anvil 

Stumpie, diminutive of stump 

Strunt, spirituous liquor of any kind ; to walk 
sturdily ; huft", suilenness 

Stuff, corn or pulse of any kind 

Sturt, trouble ; to molest 

-Sturtin, frighted 

Sucker, sugar 

Sud, should 

iSugh, the continued rushing noise of wind or 
water 

Southron, southern ; an old name for the Eng- 
lish nation 

Swaird, sward 

Swaird, swelled 

Swank, stately, jolly 

Swankie, or swanker, a tight strappin young 
fellow or girl 

Swap, an exchange ; to barter 

Swarf, to swoon ; a swoon 

Swat, did sweat 

iswatch, a sample 

Swats, drink ; good ale 

(11) 



Sweaten, sweating 

Sweer, lazy, averse ; dead-sweer, extremely a- 

verse 
Swoor, swore, did swear 
Swinge, to beat ; to whip 
Swirl, a curve ; an eddying blast, or pool ; a 

knot in wood 
Swirlie, knaggie, full of knots 
Swith, get away 
Swither, to hesitate in choice ; an irresolute 

wavering in choice 
Syne, since, ago ; then 



TACKETS, a kind of nails for driving into 
the heals of shoes 

Tae, a toe ; three tae'd, having three prongs 

Tairge, a target 

Tak, to take ; takin, taking 

Tamtallan, the name of a mountain 

Tangle, a sea-weed 

Tap, the top 

Tapetless, heedless, foolish 

Tarrow, to murmur at one's allowance 

Tarrow't, murmured 

Tarry-breeks, a sailor 

Tauld, or tald, told 

Taupie, a foolish, thoughtless young person 

Tanted, or tautie, matted together ; spoken 
of hair or wool 

Tawie, that allows itself peaceably to be hand- 
led ; spoken of a horse, cow, &c. 

Teat, a small quantity 

Teen, to provoke ; provocation 

Tedding, spreading after the mower 

Ten -hours bite, a slight feed to the horses 
while in the yoke, in the forenoon 

Tent, a field-pulpit ; heed, caution ; to take 
heed ; to tend or herd cattle 

Tentie, heedful, cautious 

Tentless, heedless 

Teugh, tough 

Thack, thatch ; thack an' rape, clothing ne- 
cessaries 

Thae, these 

Thairms, small guts ; fiddle-strings 

Thankit, thanked 

Theekit, thatched 

Thegither, together 

Themsel, themselves 

Thick, intimate, familiar 

Thieveless, cold, dry, spited ; spoken of a 
person's demeanour 

Thir, these 

Thill, thrill 

Thirled, thrilled, vibrated 

Thole, to suffer, to endure 

Thowe, a thaw ; to thaw 

Thowless, slack, lazy 

Thrang, throng ; a crowd 

Thrapple, throat, windpipe 

Thrave, twenty-four sheaves or two shocks of 
corn ; a considerable number 

Thraw, to sprain, to twist ; to contradict 

'J hrawin, twisting, &c. 

Thrawn, sprained, twisted ; contradicted 

Threap, to maintain by dint of assertion 

Threshin, thrashing 

Threteen, thirteen 

Thristle, thistle 

Through, to go ou with j to make out 



GLOSSARY. 



Throuther, pell-mell, confusedly 

Thud, to make a loud intermittent noise 

Thumpit, thumped 

Thysel, thyself 

Till't, to it 

Timmer, timber 

Tine, to lose ; tint, lost 

Tinkler, a tinker 

Tint the gate, lost the way 

Tip, a ram 

Tippence, twopence 

Tirl, to make as light noise ; to uncover 

Tirlin, uncovering 

Tither, the other 

Tittle, to whisper 

Tittlin, whispering- 
Tocher, marriage portion 

Tod, a fox 

Toddle, to totter, like the walk of a child 

Toddhn, tottering 

Tooni, empty, to empty 

Toop, a ram 

Toun, a hamlet ; a farm-house 

Tout, the blast of a horn or trumpet ; to blow 
a horn, &c. 

Tow, a rope 

'I'owmond, a twelvemonth 

Towzie, rough, shaggy 

Toy, a very old fashion of female head-dress 

Toyte, to totter like old age 

Transmugrified, transmigrated, metamorphos- 
ed 

Trashtrie, trash 

Trews, trowsers 

Trickle, full of tricks 

Trig, spruce, neat 

Trimly, excellently 

Trow, to believe 

Trowth, truth, a petty oath 

Tryste, an appointment ; a fair 

Trysted, appointed ; To tryste, to make an 
appointment 

Try't, tried 

Tug, raw hide, of which in old times plough- 
traces were frequently made 

Tulzie, a quarrel; to quarrel, ofgtt 

Twa, two 

Twa-three, a few 

'Twad, it would 

Twal, twelve; twal-pennie worth, a small 
quantity, a penny-worth 

N.B. One penny English is 12d Scotch 

Twin, to part 

Tyke, a dog 

U 
UNCO, strange, uncouth ; very, very great, 

prodigious 
Uncos, news 
Unkenn'd, unknown 
Unsicker, unsure, unsteady 
Unskaith'd, undamaged, unhurt 
Unweeting, unwittingly, unknowingly 
Upo', upon 
Urchin, a hedgehog 



VAP'RIN, vapouring 

Vera, very 

Virl, a ring round a column, &c. 

Vittle, corn of all kinds, food 

(12^ 



W 

WA', wall ; wa's, walls 
Wabster, a weaver 

Wad, would ; to bet ; a bet, a pledge 
Wadna, would not 
Wae, wo ; sorrowful 
Waefu', woful, sorrowful, wailing 
Waesucks ! or v/aes me ! alas ! O the pity 
Waft, the cross thread that goes from the shut- 
tle through the web ; woof 
Wair, to lay out, to expend 
Wale, choice ; to choose 
Waled, chose, chosen 

Walie, ample, large, jolly ; also an interjec- 
tion of distress 
Wame, the belly 
Wamefu', a belly-full 
Wanchancie, unlucky 
Wanrestfu', restless 
Wark, work 

Wark-lume, a tool to work with 
Warl, or warld, world 
Warlock, a wizard 

Warly, worldly, eager on amassing wealth 
Warran, a warrant ; to warrant 
Warst, worst 

Warstl'd or warsl'd, wrestled 
Wastrie, prodigality 
Wat, wet ; I wat, I wot, 1 know 
Water-brose, brose made of meal and water 
simply, without the addition of milk, but- 
ter, &c. 
Wattle, a twig, a wand 
Wauble, to swing, to reel 
Waught, a draught 
Waukit, thickened as fullers do cloth 
Waukjit'e, not apt to sleep 
Waur, worse ; to worst 
Waur't, worsted 

Wean, or weanie, a child 

Wearie, or weary ; many a weary body, many 
a different person 

Wer.sop , v'^asand 

WZriVVf' the stoclang. See Stocking 

W iCy uuie; M'ce things, little ones; Wee 
bit, a small mal ter 

Weel, well; Wfeltiire, welfare 

Weet, rain, wetness 

Weird, fate 

We'se, we shall, 

Wha, who 

Whaizle, to wheeze 

Whalpit, whelped 

Whang, a leathern string ; a piece of cheese, 
bread, &c. , to give the strappado 

Whare, where ; Whare'cr, wherever 

Wheep, to fly nimbly, jerk ; penny-wheep, 
small beer 

Whase, whose 

Whatreck, nevertheless 

Whid, the motion of a hare, running but not 
frighiw ; a lie 

Whiddm . running as a hare or cony 

Whigmeleeries, whim,s, fancies, crotchets 

Whingiu'. crying, complaining, fretting 

Whirhgigmos, useless ornaments, trifling ap- 
pendages 

Whissle, a whistle ; to whistle 

Whist, silence ; to hold one's whisht, to be 
silent 



GLOSSARY. 



Whisk, to sweep, to lash 

Whiskit, lashed 

Whitter, a hearty draught of liquor 

M^hun-stane, a whin-stone 

Whyles, whiles, sometimes 

Wi', with 

Wicht, wight, powerful, strong; inventive; 
of a superior genius 

Wick, to strike a stone in an oblique direc- 
tion ; a term in curling 

Wicker, willow (the smaller sort) 

Wiel, a small whirlpool 

Wifie, a diminutive or endearing term for 
wife 

Wilyart, bashful and reserved ; avoiding so- 
ciety or appearing awkward in it, wild, ti- 
mid, strange 

Wimple, to meander 

WimpFt, meandered 

Wimplin', waving, meandering 

Win, to win, to winnow 

Win't, winded as a bottom of yarn 

Win', wind ; Win's, winds 

W^inna, will not 

Winnock, a window 

Winsome, hearty, vaunted, gay 

Wintle, a staggering motion ; to stagger, to 
reel 

Winze, an oath 

Wiss, to wish 

Withouten, without 

Wizen'd, hide-bound, dried, shrunk 

AVonner, a wonder ; a contemptuous appella- 
tion 

Wons, dwells 

Woo', wool 

Woo, to court, to make love to 

Woodie, a rope, more properly one made of 
withes or willows 

Woor-bab, the garter knotted below the knee 
with a couple of loops 

(13) 



Wordy, worthy 

Worset, worsted 

Wow, an exclamation of pleasure or won- 
der 

Wrack, to teaze, to vex 

Wraith, a spirit, or ghost ; an apparition ex- 
actly like a living person, whose appearance 
is said to forbode the person's approaching 
death 

Wrang, wrong ; to wrong 

Wreetn, a drifted heap of snow 

Wud, mad, distracted 

Wumble, a wimble 

Wyle, to beguile 

Wyliecot, a flannel vest 

Wyte, blame ; to blame 



Y'AD, an old mare ; a worn out horse 

Ye ; this pronoun is frequently used for thou 

Yearns, longs much 

Yearhngs, born in the same year, coevals 

Year is used both for singular and plural years 

Yearn, earn, an eagle, an ospray 

Yell, barren, that gives no milk 

Yerk, to lash, to jerk 

Yerkit, jerked, lashed 

Yestreen, yesternight 

Yett, a gate, such as is usually at the entrance 

into a farm-yard or field 
Yill, ale 
Yird, earth 

Yokin', yoking ; a bout 
Yont, beyond 
Yoursel' yourself 
Yowe, a ewe 

Yowie, diminutive of yowe 
Yule, Christmas 



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